Katete’s Undi Primary School still has ‘colonial face’

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By DOREEN NAWA
UNDI Primary School is one of the oldest schools in the country where formal education was first introduced by missionaries and colonialists.
But it is now an eyesore. Built in 1952, the school has not received a facelift since then.
Located four kilometres from the Great East Road and less than a kilometre from Kalonga Gawa Undi’s palace, the school has poor infrastructure which has affected the performance of the pupils.
“We are not very far away from town [Katete] but if you look at the school infrastructure, one may mistake us for a refugee camp in some border area,” says acting school headmaster, Christopher Moyo.
Mr Moyo has one appeal to politicians, and that is to ensure that they honour their promises.
“Politicians have come and gone and nothing has been done to this school. This school is less than 100 metres away from the road leading to Kalonga Gawa Undi’s palace. Politicians come here every year for the ceremony without passing by to see how dilapidated the school infrastructure is,” he said.
“I hope our new member of Parliament (MP), Peter Phiri will ensure that our school receives attention. I know he may not personally do it, but he can bring out the challenges that schools in Mkaika constituency face in Parliament.
By so doing, Government through the Ministry of Education can come to our rescue,” Mr Moyo said.
The school is situated about a kilometre away from the palace and is by the roadside leading to Paramount Kalonga Gawa Undi’s palace. It has grades 1 to 9.
A visit to this school confirms its desperate need for a facelift. The school is home to 631 pupils who depend on six classrooms.
“Our school has no infrastructure to talk about and this has also affected the performance of the pupils. The lack of infrastructure is certainly a crisis,” Mr Moyo said. It is a reality that most rural pupils are disadvantaged in their education because they lack certain learning materials and better school infrastructure.
For Undi Primary School, delivering quality education to the pupils in the area is a challenge because the school’s infrastructure makes it look like a blueprint for demolition.
“At this school, talking of quality education is a fallacy because of the quality of the infrastructure. The school has only one borehole which services teachers, the pupils and the villages around this area with a population of over 1,300 people,” Mr Moyo said.
Education is seen as an equaliser of opportunities. For that to be realised, it is essential that the children have the necessary school infrastructure, equipment and materials. Children cannot compete favourably if they lack in certain materials.
Jane Phiri, a Grade 7 pupil at Undi Primary School notes that there is a crisis in education in Katete, adding that if she had a choice, she would have migrated to Lusaka to pursue her education from there.
“We are not motivated to come to school, that is why some parents opt to marrying off their girls. Sometimes as girls, we talk about our goals and we get frustrated by the infrastructure,” said Jane.

A close-up on one of the classrooms at Undi School

Ackson Jere, one of the teachers at the school says the need to invest more in infrastructure development in the education sector cannot be over-emphasised, especially now that the re-entry policy and free education policy are in place.
“Indeed, it is a tough world and all the indications are that it is going to become even tougher for most Zambians in rural areas in a few decades to come and set out to make a future of their own without an education.
If the government is committed to educating all children in Zambia, then investing in infrastructure and resources in the sector should be a priority,” Mr Jere said.
The Millennium Development Goals set a more realistic, but still difficult, deadline of 2015 for least-developed countries that are still wallowing in abject poverty.
Investing in education infrastructure remains key to achieving education for all by 2015.