Head teacher asks for NGOs’ ‘keeping girls in school’ interventions
A primary school head teacher at Chambuluka in Chikwawa district has asked for Non-governmental Organizations to go to his school and implement activities that will help keep girls in school.
The head teacher, Baton Sande made the remarks on Wednesday when Nice Trust Chikwawa office organized an interface meeting with the communities.
He said there have been 10 dropouts of girls in the first term as well as the second term which is not yet finished posing a threat that there might be more of dropouts if no tangible measures are put in place.
Said Sande, “the major problem is that the school is located in the remoteness of Chikwawa district and from my observation it has been noted that most communities do not value the importance of education.
Most parents do not hold full responsibility over their children and many girls are dropping out of school early pregnancies that end them entering into early marriages a thing that poses a threat of having illiterate communities a situation that will likely affect our development as a nation.”
He further stated that it was necessary if some NGOs intervened and introduced activities that will help communities realize importance of education more especially educating the girl child.
“There is a need for more interventions by the NGOs to help girls remain in school. We have a lot of problems as a school apart from lack of understanding among communities on the importance of education.
We only have two blocks all giving us four classes and the rest classes of Standard 2, 3 and 4 learn outside in grass thatched sheds. The four classes mentioned lick when it’s raining and the outside classes pose a big problem as pupils are exposed to bad weather and environment that makes their learning conditions not conducive,” said Sande
Sande added that Chambuluka Primary School which is located at a distance of 15 kilometers from Ngabu Trading Centre has no borehole and pupils walk a 2 kilometer distance to access water. Adding the school has no desks where pupils would sit on during lessons.
One of the officers, at Chikwawa NICE Trust, Mayamiko Siliya called on the government and other stakeholders to bail out Chambuluka communities who needed immediate action as the learning environment there was bad.
She said that most of the times problems come because communities do not understand issues of good governance and their responsibilities over development adding “We have leaders in our areas such as Members of Parliament, Councilors, other civil servants including the head teachers themselves. These are the people communities need to interact with and make sure that they give the people required development.”
NICE Trust in Chikwawa has been holding various interface meetings with the communities where among other things, communities have been informed of good governance, have been told to be responsible by making sure they demand development, to empower them by seeing to it that developmental projects are being fulfilled and forming up of Citizen Forum Committees that act as mouth piece for communities among many other interventions.
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Where is an MP for this area who is not concerned about the plight of this school? I have the greatest problem of condemning these type of people who are not servants of the people. I doubt if this school does have a pit latrine. No wonder girls shun education because of lack of good learning environment.