Education vital to socio economic development

Masaiti District Council Chairperson, Christine Chande, says government remains resolute to improving education standards in the country especially in rural areas.

Ms Chande said government wants to see every Zambian attain education because it is a vital driver of securing socio-economic development and emancipation for the people.

Ms Chande has since called on elected leaders in the country to work diligently to improve education standards to benefit the people that voted them into office.

The Council Chairperson said this in an interview with ZANIS in Masaiti following her inspection of works for the 1×2 and 1×3 classroom blocks that under construction at Mpulabushi and Muteteshi Primary Schools in Masaiti.

Mpulabushi School currently only has one 1×2 classroom block and two teachers catering for over 400 pupils from grade one to seven while Muteteshi primary school located at least 20 kilometres from the main road has five classrooms with seven teachers against 750 pupils from grade one to nine

“There’s a scarcity of teachers in most of our schools, a scarcity of classroom space, and of course many other challenges. We as leaders should therefore step up and work to ensure we make our schools attractive and conducive for learning,” the council chairperson said.

And James Mwewa, a teacher at the school has thanked the council chairperson for embarking on a project to set up a 1×3 classroom block.

Mr Mwewa says having a new classroom block would help improve learning at the school since pupils will no longer be bundled into the same classroom.

“This block will help us teach properly because at the moment we only have one classroom block. This means we share the classes from grade one to seven. This makes it difficult because we don’t fully deliver education accordingly,” he said.

Muteteshi Primary School Head Teacher, Njekwa Njekwa, says teacher to pupil contact hours are not enough due to inadequate classroom space at the school.

Mr Njekwa has since appealed to government to deploy more teachers at the school to improve the teacher to pupil ratio.

“The government should consider sending more teachers here to reduce on workload and ensure effective teaching. As it stands one the ratio means one teacher per 100 pupils which is not good,” he said.

Mr Njekwa further bemoaned the school not being connected to the national power grid saying this has caused teachers to shun or abandon the school after being deployed.