(Last Updated on October 20, 2020 by Editor)
LUPANE – Teachers at Sichongo primary school in Lupane have reportedly left school due to poor facilities.
Evidence Makhetho, a villager in the area speaking during community meeting held at Chimwara area on Friday said teachers who are deployed to the school were not showing up because of poor infrastructure.
Currently the school is said to be having four teachers with two of them being temporary teachers and the staff cottages are in bad state.
Makhetho said “teachers are running away from this school, if they get the job to teach here, they come for one day but never return due to poor infrastructure. Last year we received a teacher for ECD, after staying for a very long time without an ECD teacher, when he came here, he just surveyed the school and told us he is going to fetch his luggage but he never returned.”
Adding that the teachers would only call later to notify that they were not coming back and citing poor infrastructure as the reason.
She further appealed for assistance with building material so that they can attract teachers to stay.
She added that“the thing is that we do not have building material or equipment to renovate our school. We are appealing for that assistance so that if teachers get employed, they can be able to stay and teach our children. There are a few teachers who manage to stay here and teach our children.
“The availability of teachers is going to ensure that our girl child stays at school because at the moment when there are few teachers, most of them are not attending schools, they spend the day fetching water and assisting us parents with home chores.”
Makhetho also highlighted that the school was very far with children walking about 14 km to and back from school.
Ward 25 councillor, Khawulani Muzamba added that the school has one classroom block and they need more.
“As the council we are trying to develop the school, as you can see we have one block that we are trying to build but we are appealing for assistance with building material such as cement and bricks to build classroom blocks and a cottage,” said Cllr Muzamba.
“We also do not have a water source at the school especially now that we are facing Covid-19, if we can also get assistance with a borehole at the school, even if it’s a solar powered one.”