ITEZHI-TEZHI HAS NEW SECONDARY SCHOOL
Fri, 25 Aug 2017 14:43:03 +0000
By Kalobwe Bwalya
GOVERNMENT has upgraded Mbila Primary School in Itezhi-Tezhi to a secondary school to cater for many children that have dropped out school at Grade 7 level, says Central Province permanent secretary, Chanda Kabwe.
Mr Kabwe said, Government has also constructed a new 1×3 classroom block at the same school to meet the increased population of pupils that has come with the upgrade.
Mr Kabwe has since directed the local authority to immediately sink two boreholes to address the problem of water shortage, especially that the school was surrounded by six primary schools which were sending pupils to the new secondary school.
He said pupils dropped out of school because they feared crossing flooded plains as the area was located about 80 kilometres from Itezhi-Tezhi central business district.
Mr Kabwe said that the school will soon be connected to the national power grid and urged people to work with the government in promoting national development.
He said the government had placed education as one of the key components in its development agenda and wanted to ensure that every child had access to quality education.
“Therefore President Lungu did not want to see children dropping out of school at Grade 7 due to lack of education facilities, President Lungu wants to see every child gets quality education, we have upgraded this school to a secondary to demonstrate that we are not just talking but implementing,” said Mr Kabwe.
“This is a remote area, but that is not a barrier for us in terms of delivering development, we will continue taking development to all parts of the country including those that did not vote for President Lungu” he said.
And provincial education officer, Jennifer Banda said a mobile laboratory had been installed at the school to help the pupils learn sciences and that the school is among the 20 that have been allocated in the province.
“This is another important milestone in the delivery of quality education to all the children regardless of where they are. Many children had problems to access secondary education, but with the upgrading of Mbila we hope to see many children finishing school,” said Ms Banda.