Proper facilities lacking

Education

By YVONNE KAMBIBEL
MANY church-run schools in the country’s most remote areas have been missing out on proper learning and teaching resources for decades, says a senior education official.
National Churches Education Council chairman Michael Ova said “it’s mostly theory for students in rural areas”.
Due to their remoteness, Ova said most of these rural schools did not have proper learning facilities such as libraries, science laboratories or support materials such as teachers’ guides and text books to enhance the practical side of learning.
“We have learnt from our official visits to schools that in most cases, teachers have to be creative somehow,” he said.
“Teachers use either nature or create materials from available resources to demonstrate a point to students in class.”
Ova said teaching in rural schools had many challenges that needed the attention and intervention from the Education Department.
Although the church has been working in partnership with the Education Department in many areas, he emphasised that more needed to be done to bring all rural schools up to standard.
Meanwhile, Ova commended the Government for its commitment of K316mil in subsidies for terms one and two this year.
He said the Government’s commitment was timely as most schools had struggled financially last year and would need the funds to start the new school year.
Ova said he hoped the money would be enough to also enable schools who had debts to settle them.