Civil society organizations and communities in Nkhatabay have threatened to take unspecified action if the government does not reverse a decision of turning Chimbota Private secondary school into a district girl boarding school.
The development comes against a background that at least one hundred and three learners have been transferred from the school to pave way for the 2022/2023 form one intake.
In an interview with MIJ Online Phillip Chibisa, Co-director of the school said there is no memorandum of understanding that mandates the government to operate the private school.
“We have not signed the memorandum of understanding, the government is operating because they have done everything in hurry, what we need now is to sit down and write the memorandum of understanding” said Chibisa.
However, Chibisa confirmed that the school management engaged the ministry of education on the possibility of working together to run the school, a move which was turned down by the government.
“We have been operating the school for seven years and looking at the way the inflation has been going on around the world talking of Russia- Ukraine war and Covid 19, the management sat down and we saw that we cannot manage to pay salaries for teachers and we decided to make a partnership with the government but we were told that it is impossible for a private sector to make a partnership with government” added Chibisa.
Chibisa said the community wants the school to accommodate both girls and boys from sub traditional Authority Ndola in an effort to address challenges of access to secondary education.
In a separate interview Dustan Chunda, Executive Director of Mulelewaka foundation has threatened to take unspecified action if an engagement meeting will not yield results.
“We are very disappointed with what has transpired, the community approached us after noticing that almost 103 students have been left out, they have nowhere to go, the government has put them in some boarding secondary school where many community members cannot afford to pay school fees,” said Chunda.
He added that the foundation together with the community will be engaging the ministry of education to reverse the situation.
Meanwhile, education authorities in Nkhata Bay are on record saying that consultation meetings were held before the decision was taken on board to turn the private school into a girl’s boarding school.
