Namushekendi Primary School authorities have praised the government for the construction of a healthy room by the Health Learners organization at the institution. Namushekendi Primary School Headteacher, Mwangala Litia said the construction of the healthy room will reduce absenteeism among learners as they will be accessing health services within the school and continue with their education. “The construction of a healthy room at the school has come at the right time as the school is witnessing a high number of learners failing to attend lessons due to illnesses.
These sickness challenges among our learners at this institution have led to poor performance among the pupils but this issue is now being addressed” he said. “At the moment, we have about six teachers who have been trained by the officials from the Ministry of Health in basic handling of minor illnesses which are rampant in this locality,” Mrs Litia said. The Headteacher complained that absenteeism was rampant at the school resulting in poor performances by many of the learners.
He said the construction of the facility by the Healthy Learners organisation will improve the quality of education adding that the structure was the best solution to the school’s poor performance. “Some of our parents were unable to access health services for their children due to long distances to go to a nearest health facility which is many kilometres away from their homes.” Mr Litia said Namushekendi Primary School Parents Teachers Committee Chairperson, Chinonge Muzimba said the health room construction would bring sanity as learners at the institution would be able to receive treatment once they fell sick. Mr Muzimba said teachers at the school used to encounter challenges especially when a pupil fell sick because they would lift and take the sick learner to the clinic as parents stayed far from the school.
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“You know, our school is one of those institutions found in the remote places of Mongu, as such some of our parents are not within the school vicinity, so the whole responsibility was solely on our teachers. The teachers used to abandon classes to take the sick learner to the nearest health facility, this meant that teaching other learners was disturbed for a particular day session,” Mr Muzimba said. And Induna Liwakala of the Barotse Royal Establishment said the initiative by the Healthy Learners organisation to construct healthy rooms in the chiefdom was a welcome move. Induna Liwakala, Kakanda Musole said the traditional leadership will work with the Healthy Learners in ensuring the healthy rooms constructions were enhanced in order to improve learner’s performances in the locality.
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