PS disappointed with pupils’ results in Western Province

—–Western Province Permanent Secretary (PS), Emmanuel Mwamba, says he is disappointed with the 2013’s Western Province record of the poorest pupils’ results in the country.

Mr. Mwamba wondered how the province could record a pass rate of only 27 per cent with 73 per cent failing out of all the pupils who sat for the examinations countrywide.

The PS expressed his displeasure at Kalabo Secondary School when he addressed teachers from Kalabo and Nalionwa High Schools as well as from Kalabo and Nalionwa Primary Schools.

Mr Mwamba said Western Province was the pioneer of education, saying in 1974 out of the 100 University of Zambia students who graduated, 75 of them were from the Western province.

Mr Mwamba expressed concern that since independence under-development was the case of Western province alongside poverty levels that rose tremendously in the area.

He said this was unacceptable and that there was need to improve the education sector in the province, adding that teachers were the key in achieving this goal of improvement.

The PS observed that the rate of absenteeism by teachers was also too high with an excuse of going for salaries in Mongu and hoped that the situation would be improved with the newly opened National Servings and Credit Bank in Kalabo.

Mr Mwamba said education was cardinal in uplifting people from poverty and asked education authorities in Kalabo to encourage parents especially for girls to be in boarding schools than renting as daily boarders as this made them vulnerable to immorality resulting into unwanted pregnancies among others.

Mr Mwamba also advised teachers to refrain from politics but to conduct themselves properly as they were being used in crucial national exercises such as elections and censuses.

He said teachers were there to mould the future of children, adding that society has broken down because the teaching fraternity has also broken down, a situation that needed to be reversed.