Katongo primary school pupils learning on floor.

By Peter Mwiinga Some pupils at Katongo Primary School in Mongu District are learning on floor due to inadequate classrooms desks. Mongu Children News Agency – MCNA members visited the school, during their tour of child rights projects who found some pupils learning sitting on the floor because of a shortage of classrooms desks. A school teacher, Mr. Sibeso Nyambe (not his real name) told the MCNA members that lack of classroom desks for school pupils has put the school management under pressure to look into the issues of increasing classroom desks. Mr. Nyambe said the school needs more classroom desks to contend with the increase in the number of pupil enrolments. “As you can see reporters, we are forced to teach some pupils on the floor due to inadequate classroom desks as the number of pupils being enrolled is on the upswing,” said Mr. Nyambe. Mr. Nyambe also said lack of new teaching materials in Silozi language has affected pupil’s performance. “We do not have the new syllabus in Silozi and you will find that for instance pupils in grade two are still doing syllabus for grade one because we have not yet received the new teaching materials in Silozi for grade two,” said Mr. Nyambe. The information was backed by the school records pass rate for all pupils at the school in 2015 examination results. However, Mr. Nyambe praised the teachers for accepting to work at the school and urged them to continue working hard as government was committed to addressing a myriad of challenges facing the education sector.