Katelemula school in Kapiri in water blues

–Pupils and teachers at Katelemuna Basic School in Kapiri Mposhi district are reportedly sharing water with animals due to lack of a safe source for drinking water at the institution.

School head teacher, Frank Siaswana, said lack of a borehole at the institution has forced teachers and pupils to turn to a nearby stream for drinking water. 

This came to light when Kapiri Mposhi District Commissioner, Beatrice Sikazwe, visited the school yesterday.

Mr Siaswana said the pupils, teachers and their families were sharing the water in the stream with animals, saying the situation is posing a danger to their health.

The head teacher appealed to the District Commissioner to intervene by providing a borehole to improve the water situation at the school.

“We have a lot of cases of diarrhoea amongst pupils, teachers and their family members due to consuming of dirty water from the stream which we are sharing with farm animals such as cows and pigs. We need help from you,” Mr Siaswana said.  

And Mr Sianswana has appealed to government to put up more classrooms at the institution to cater for the increasing number of pupils in the area.

He said currently the school, which runs up to Grade Nine, only had three classrooms against 413 pupils.

The school was built with support from the PTA.

The head teacher said the school was also facing low staffing levels with only six teachers instead of a total establishment of 16.

Meanwhile, Ms Sikazwe has called on the Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) at the institution to work together to solve some of the problems that pupils were facing at the institutions.