President Nyusi wants school furniture treated better

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President Nyusi wants school furniture treated better

12:00 CAT | 27 Nov 2017

Notícias

School administrators and teachers should involve pupils, parents and guardians as well as the community in general in taking measures to ensure the proper use, maintenance and durability of school desks and furniture, President Filipe Nyusi has said.

Speaking on Saturday in Tete province at the launch of the school desk manufacture and distribution program, President Nyusi said that in each district there should be a plan, not only for the acquisition of new desks, but also for their conservation, maintenance and repair.

The head of state again appealed to the directors of secondary schools in the country to open small repair units with the involvement of the students themselves.

“The director of Education and the school must be made aware that it is not normal to be a director of students who study sitting on the floor,” the president said.

President Nyusi said that school managers’ performance evaluation should include their ability to solve the problem of children sitting on the floor, warning that we are all called upon to redouble our efforts to combat any attempt to vandalise or misuse desks or other public institution assets.

The head of state said that the government was committed to finding innovative solutions to address the approximately 800,000 desk shortfall, with Zambézia, Nampula and Niassa provinces being the most deficient, representing more than half of the needs.

It is estimated that about three million 6- and 7-year-olds lack desks and are studying on the floor. In order to improve learning conditions, the government made the acquisition of 700 thousand desks a priority in the five-year 2015-2019 plan. Between 2015 and 2016, a total of 151 thousand school desks were acquired and distributed in the country. Later, a further 40,600 units were acquired, a total of 191,600 desks.

“From 2015 to date, we have managed to fulfil about 27 percent of the planned goal. If we take into account that the unit price of a desk in the national market is around 5,000 meticais, it would take about 4 million meticais to buy the desks currently lacking in schools,” Nyusi said.

The country, the head of state said, is rich in natural resources, including wood, which could be a source of income for the economy and communities. Unfortunately, these resources are being exploited in an unsustainable and irresponsible way. To address this, the government had devised a new model for monitoring and collecting all illegally acquired timber.

“I am referring to Operation Tronco, launched on 1 March by the Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, which confiscated illegally exploited timber as a way of stopping the destruction of forestry resources in the country,” Nyusi explained.

By the end of 2018, Operation Tronco will make 140,000 new school desks available, and the success of this approach will respond to demand for clean, dry wood for the production of the desks necessary to remedy the deficit in the short term.

Addressing an audience of teachers, the president said that “we want to remember that attitude, posture has a direct influence on the student’s education”. He added that it was vital to honour the profession and warrant the admiration and respect of the people who cherished their teachers even while living with adversity themselves.

Source: Notícias