adminLloyd Gumbo Herald Reporter
GOVERNMENT wants to replace 1 420 satellite schools, most in resettlement areas, because the children are learning under trees or in converted tobacco barns.
Appearing before a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Art and Culture last week, the Acting Secretary for Primary and Secondary Education, Mr Rogers Sisimayi, said not only did the resettlement schools need proper buildings but the Government needed to build another 276 new schools to ease congestion at existing normal schools.
Speaking on the schools which had no proper buildings, Mr Sisimayi said: “ . . . we have 833 (primary) schools that would require new structures so that they do not operate under trees. We need 587 secondary schools so that we remove them from operating under trees and tobacco barns giving us a total of 1 420.”
Mr Sisimayi said the US$866 million allocated to the ministry in the 2014 National Budget proposals was inadequate to even start building given that 96 percent of the budget would go to employment costs.
The ministry had submitted a bid of about US$1,23 billion.
Legislators said it was unsustainable for employment costs to chew nearly the entire budget, suggesting that there was need to streamline the workforce.
Mr Sisimayi, however, said it was inevitable that the ministry’s workforce, which is almost entirely teachers, would be increased when new schools were built to cater for growing demand for education.
“We have 346 schools that are congested; mega-schools accommodating over 3 000 pupils. It becomes unwieldy. We need to decongest those schools and create new ones
“ When you do that it means additional teachers. We need at least 276 new schools, 195 primary and 81 secondary to meet the current demand,” he said.
Teachers have not been spared as the condemned satellite schools do not offer accommodation.
The development has seen the schools failing to attract qualified teachers.
Online Reporter