2)–Chiawa bridge completion applauded

School authorities at Nyawa Primary School in Kazungula district have expressed concern at the increasing number of early marriages in chief Nyawa’s area.

Deputy Head Teacher Doreen Matome said yesterday at a community meeting held at Nyawa Secondary School that young girls especially at her school are being forced to leave school and married off by their parents.

Mrs Matome said those who preferred marriages at the expense of education were young girls in grade six and seven adding that the latest was a 15 year old grade eight pupil who ran away from home in Nyawa to go to Zimba where she is allegedly married.

Mrs. Matome observed that parents were to blame for the vice because they were supposed to be in the forefront educating their children about the importance of education.

She said that when some of the young girls disappear from their homes, parents do not follow up the issues so that they could deal with the matter.

The Deputy Head Teacher wondered how the school management alone can manage to convince school going children to take keen interest in education when their parents were on the forefront forcing them into early marriages.

Mrs. Matome appealed to parents to stop the habit and instead encourage their children to get educated for them to have a bright future before they could think of marriage.

And Katombola Member of Parliament Derrick Livune has warned parents who are in the habit of forcing their children into early marriages that the law would visit them .

Mr. Livune who was in the area to check on the developmental projects said it was shocking to learn that parents were in the habit of sending their girls into early marriages.

He charged that the women of today play an important role in the social and economic development of the nation.

Mr. Livune added that education was the only way to a better living and appealed to parents to educate their children to the best of their abilities and later achieve the fruits of their education