Pupils learning from outside at Musisa Community School

Grade 3 pupils at Musisa Community School in Gwembe District Southern Province are learning from outside and sitting on bricks.

The school has 1 X 2 classroom block which was built by the community.

The school runs from Early Child Education (ECE) to Grade 7.

This year the community applied for Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to improve the school but the application is still pending approval.

The teachers and the community are hopeful that in the next year’s CDF allocation they will be considered.

The school Head Teacher comfirmed that the community school has about 178 pupils enrolled and this year had its first 18 grade 7 pupils writing from the same school.

He said, the school has no houses for teachers near and that they have to walk 7 kilometers to get to the school.

“The school only has a 1×2 classroom block and can collapse anytime,” the Head Teacher said.

However, in the run-up to the August 2021 election, President Hakainde Hichilema promised Zambians that his government would ensure that the right to education is guaranteed for the country’s nearly eight million children by removing the monetary obstacles that made it inaccessible to the majority of citizens.

In a December circular, the government revealed that the provision of free education from early childhood education to secondary school level would start in January with the government paying tuition fees through a compensatory grant.

The circular also revealed that the government was making a two-fold increase in primary and secondary school grants in order to uphold quality education standards.

The government also made additional funds available through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to bring relief to children from families suffering from extreme poverty – money that would allow children from remote areas to attend boarding schools as well as get such personal items like uniforms and school shoes.

The government said it would raise the extra funding for the education sector by removing subsidies on fuel and electricity, among other initiatives.

Practically, some schools face perennial shortage of resources that range desks , classroom blocks (leading to overcrowding) to a shortage of books and other learning materials.

Zambian Eye, 16th November, 2022