Fri, 09 Jun 2017 14:23:40 +0000
By VIOLET TEMBO
KAFULAFUTA has continued to record high numbers of teenage pregnancies due to lack of a secondary school, area Member of Parliament Joseph Kabamba has disclosed.
Speaking in an interview, Mr. Kabamba said the nearest secondary school was in Tag barracks, where a huge number of pupils from the area had been enrolled to attain secondary education.
And a contractor engaged to construct a new secondary school in the area has abandoned works, the MP has told Daily Nation.
He stated that pupils had since taken up the initiative to rent houses surrounding the military base.
Mr. Kabamba said the situation has since resulted in female pupils engaging in illicit vices to make ends meet while others due to peer pressure got pregnant, thereby dropping out of school prematurely.
He has since appealed to Government through the Ministry of Education to quickly engage another contractor following a six year absence by the previous contractor
“A named contractor was engaged to construct a secondary school at Masangano in 2010 by the Government but I do not know what went wrong and only came to learn when I was elected into office that works had stalled.
“I have tried to engage him and all he says is that he has
issues pending that were not resolved at the time he was engaged.
“My concern is, the infrastructure is our hope to reduce teenage pregnancies among school going girls in the area. My appeal to Government is that they should come to our aid and push the contractor to expedite works,” he said.
Mr. Kabamba said it was the anticipation and plans of the District Education Board (DEBS) that once the school was completed it would house day classes but later be turned into a boarding school.
“I would like to see to it the school is completed. Initially, it was planned to be a boarding school as the same project was started at same time with Masaiti Boarding School.
“Masaiti is now operational but the school in my constituency has stalled.
“I am now engaging the Ministry of Education and have proposed we start it as a day school so that pupils can start accessing education within short distances and later on it can progress to be a boarding school.
“Children are being subjected to walk long distances to get to the nearest school and most of them are not able to complete their education,” he bemoaned.
He has appealed to Government to award the contract to another developer if the previous one is not located.
He stated that 80 percent of works on housing units on site had been done with nothing to look at in regards to classroom structures.
