By JOHN SAKALA
Barely a few days after the Ministry of General Education formulated the policy to localise the manufacturing of school furniture, The King’s School in Shibuyunji District embarked on a project to take up the initiative.
The school now has sufficient desks after the project was completed last year.
The school Head Sydney Chisanga did not want to delegate this assignment of manufacturing school desks to pupils or the community.
He instead with his trainee teacher, Evans Chinyanta, decided to drive the project.
And within two weeks, these two inspirational educationists managed to make more than 200 double and single seater desks using a diesel powered portable generator as a reliable source of power. More than 36 window frames were correspondingly fabricated.
At the time the project was being implemented, the price of a double and single desk was pegged at K950 and K750 respectively.
But with this brilliant idea, the cost of buying desks was drastically reduced to slightly below K200 per desk. Under this initiative the school bought material and made the desks freely for the school.
Many other desks and office furniture which were damaged, were rehabilitated at no extra cost.
The Minister’s clarion call to make furniture locally, came at a critical time when the institution had a serious challenge of inadequate furniture both for teachers and learners, hence the need to strategise how best the school could acquire desks with the little resources that were available.
With the repeated calls by Ministry of General Education Permanent Secretary Dr Jobbicks Kalumba to revamp school self-sustaining activities, there is totally no doubt that such inspiring projects can easily be implemented without depending on funding from the Central Government.
Sadly though, Mr Chisanga has been acting Head Teacher for the past six years without confirmation while Mr Chinyanta is merely a prospecting Teacher waiting to be recruited.
Their physical involvement in the furniture making process is commendable but the Ministry of General Education can motivate them further by ensuring that they are rewarded for their initiatives to ensure the school saves more resources which can be channeled to other critical areas of need.
