Classes on hold at Kavango East school

ELIZABETH MWENGOPUPILS of Martin Ndumba Secondary School in the Kavango East region have not returned to class since the reopening of schools, as the hostel’s kitchen is not in an acceptable condition.

This is despite the directive of the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture for all schools to have resumed on 4 August.

The school is situated at Divundu, 200km from Rundu in the Kavango East region, and caters to 1 077 pupils.

So far, only pupils up to Grade 3 resumed classes on Tuesday this week, as they are not accommodated at the school’s hostel.

“I was informed the week before the lockdown that the freezer, cool room and pots were out of order, which means the school cannot receive food for the pupils,” says Dinyando Joseph, acting education inspector for the Mukwe constituency.

The school looked for assistance from other hostels, such as Divundu Combined School, Rukonga Vision School and the correctional facility to store food, but could not be helped.

Hence pupils were asked not to return, since the school would not be able to serve them meals.

“Before the school closed, we used the funds of the hostel development for gas, since the electronic pots were out of order, but the funds got depleted,” the school’s acting principal, Indjamba Japhte, says.

“We informed the ministry of works, and they came to check, and hopefully [. . .] by Friday this issue is solved, and we will be back to business as usual,” he says.

Kavango East education director Fanuel Kapapero says: “The problem with schools in general is that they have a communication problem.

“If my office was informed before the school holidays we could have sent contractors, and they would have been done by now, but as we speak the issue is being resolved.”

Joseph says the school should come up with a plan to catch up on lost time.

“The principal has given me the assurance that they have started working on that already,” he says.

“Martin Ndumba Secondary School is one of the schools of which the pupils write external examinations, and when the results come it reflects on the image of the school,” Japhte says.

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