Learning has been disrupted at Mahiga primary school in Lugari Sub County after classrooms were destroyed by strong winds that left one pupil with injuries. The roofs of two classrooms were ripped off in the midday incident that paralyzed learning activities at the school.
According to the head teacher Mr. Bernard Situma, the incident occurred a few moments after 12 noon when the pupils were taken the last lesson before the lunch break. “It came as a wild wind and destroyed two classrooms where iron sheets from standard five and seven classrooms were ripped off and hurled several meters away with part of the roof landing on the power line,” he said adding that one pupil was injured in the process as they
scrambled to run for their safety.
However, Mr. Situma has appealed to area leaders and well-wishers to come to the aid of the school, arguing that they were already facing a shortage of classrooms.
“At the moment, standard five and seven pupils have nowhere to learn from and we request well-wishers to come and help us. We are more worried about the future of the school especially when the rainy season begins,” he said, “At the moment with the current hot weather I don’t know where the pupils will study from tomorrow because we even don’t have trees we can use as temporary shades.”
According to Mr. Situma, politicians, educationists and other stakeholders had been informed about the plight of the school. The headteacher predicted the further destruction of buildings at the school unless resources were availed to put up permanent buildings.
Earlier on Mr. Situma had appealed to the stakeholders in the education sector to find ways of assisting them after raising concerns about the state of the mud classrooms in his school saying that despite having inadequate classrooms the few available classrooms
were dilapidated and that the mud structures failed to provide an appropriate learning environment. “During the rainy season it’s terrible here, the children are rained on and
the classrooms are so wet to the point that the pupils’ concentration is affected,” said the headteacher adding that the school which has a population of over 300 pupils requires urgent steps to salvage it.
Mr. Situma added that it was disappointing that the school was not included in the laptops program due to its poor structures.
His sentiments were echoed by the school Board of Management (BOM) chairman Mr. Simon Agona Kigasia who said that it was regrettable that the school which has classes ranging to standard eight and registered as an examination center lacked classrooms with pupils being forced to squeeze in tiny mud-walled structures constructed by parents.
He said since its inception, the school has only received funding from the National Government Constituency Development Fund once which was used to put up one classroom which is the only permanent structure.
The Chairman pleaded with the County government, national government and other well-wishers to come to the aid of the school which is really in need despite being ranked among the best performing schools in Mautuma ward so that learning can go on uninterrupted.
“We want to send our humble request to our member of County assembly Stephen Mulonga, our MP Ayub Savula, Governor Oparanya, the national government and all our friends to come to our aid so that we can create a conducive learning environment for our children,” said Agona.
