ONCE again the issue of shortage of chairs in Secondary schools was raised in the National Assembly. It was interesting listening to the response of the Minister putting all the blame at the feet of those respective schools' administration. Since heads of school do not have opportunities to give their views in such forum the public, therefore, are being misguided in thinking that schools' are responsible if there are not enough chairs.
Since the Chinese government made a generous donation of wooden chairs and desks, the ministry has hardly made any other attempt to ensure that there is sufficient furniture for schools in the store. The other problem is that those chairs and desks are hardly suitable for secondary schools, especially for the S4 and S5 students. They are simply not strong enough and with the screws and bolts always coming loose, students with nothing better to do remove them. Even with responsible students the chairs after a while become wobbly and not suited for writing.
However much they tried to defend their position, leaders in the ministry of education should admit that they are having problems ensuring that necessary materials that schools need are available. The next issue to come up in the Assembly will probably be exercise books because parents have already been informed that there are no exercise books in the Ministry's central store and they have, therefore, to buy those needed materials for their children.
Instead of pretending that things are rosy, it is time that government leaders admit that they do have problems. It is the case for education, for health and housing and so on….. It is hardly a sin and in that way people who can assist us will do so. I am sure many parents are willing to contribute in any way they can to ensure that their children do get the best education possible. This country has been living with a lot of pretense for a long time and this is one of the reasons that we are now in dire straits. It was joy and people were happy to hear the Minister responsible for housing admitting that there are problems with management of government houses and that measures are being taken to prevent same from happening in the future. Other ministers should start doing the same thing and then maybe our country can start moving forward after stalling for the past thirty years.