Lack of school furniture, major challenge in Wa West — Director of Education

The Wa West District Director of Education, Amatus D. Tug-uu, has decried the lack of school furniture in most basic schools in the district, which, he said was hampering effective teaching and learning.

He said there was a high deficit in school infrastructure and furniture throughout the district, saying, “this is having an effect on educational outcomes in the district”.

In some of the schools, he said, the pupils had to lay on the bare floor to learn how to write, stressing that it had an effect on the writing skills of the pupils.

“The whole district in general is facing  furniture deficiency,” he said.

Furniture deficit

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Tug-uu said the district needed about 10,000 dual desks to fill the deficit in the schools.

“If I get at least 10,000 dual desks, at least most of the schools would have some furniture for the pupils, and the situation would be better than it is now,” he said.

He said during the just ended terminal examinations by the schools, “when I went round on monitoring, you could see students lying on their bellies to write exams. This is not right.”

Death traps

Aside from the lack of furniture, Mr Tug-uu said some of the classrooms had become death traps due to the lack of maintenance and years of deterioration.

He said many attempts had been made in the past to solve the problems, but had not yielded any results, and therefore called on the public and organisations to come to the aid of the district.

Mr Tug-uu said the district assembly was aware of the challenges in the educational sector within the district.

However, he said due to the lack of the resources, the district assembly was unable to assist the schools , and thus the call on the public for assistance.

He stressed the need to give the children a proper educational foundation to prepare them for the life journey ahead of them, and expressed the belief that equipping the schools with the appropriate infrastructure and furniture was one of those ways.