By Thandiwe Moyo

Mchinji, MANA: Old Mutual Blantyre Foundation in partnership with Care Malawi has donated classroom blocks at Mkanda Primary School in Traditional Authority (TA) Mkanda in Mchinji district.

This donation comes with the aim of improving learning environment and improving school attendance and pupil retention especially girls due to the availability of conducive learning environment.

Speaking during the handover ceremony recently, Chairman for Old Mutual Blantyre Foundation, Taonga Manda said Old mutual collaborated with Care Malawi to donate the classroom blocks to Mkanda Primary school.

“The objective of Old Mutual Foundation is to partner with government in its development agenda and education is one of the focus areas that the foundation felt it can partner with the government. The objective is to ensure that learners have a conducive learning environment,” he said.

Manda said that it was the target of Old mutual Foundation to build similar blocks in the northern and southern regions.

Director of Basic Education in Ministry of Education, Grace Milner hailed Old Mutual and Care Malawi for the donation saying pupils in primary schools are facing challenges due to inadequate classrooms.

“We are delighted for this donation. This is because of the challenges that pupils are facing due to classroom shortage. As of now the pupil/teacher ratio is 90 to 1 and this is crosscutting. We believe the coming of this block will ease the pressure on teachers” she said.

Assessments conducted at the school showed some of the problems highlighted in the school Improvement Plan (SIP) which included poor condition of existing school blocks and inadequate classrooms.

Milner alluded to the fact that Mchinji was known to be a farming district with a lot of estates with child labour being a big problem as children are found working in the estates.

Country Director for Care Malawi Amos William Zaindi said he was relieved that the classroom blocks were finally being handed over to the people of Mkanda.

“Being one of the bigger projects that Care is implementing in Malawi, we would like to ensure that boys and girls who dropped out of school as a result of child labour, early marriages and early pregnancies are able to go back to school,” he said.

Zaindi added that this would not be fulfilled if the existing schools continue to have problems like lack of learning materials as well as inadequate classrooms.

Head Teacher of Mkanda Primary School, Laurent Khaya said the classroom blocks are a relief to the pressure that the teachers face handling a lot of learners at once.

Mkanda Primary School block project is worth K 36 million with a donation of desks, chairs and tables in addition to the classroom blocks and an administration block.

Mkanda Primary school has an enrollment of 2,703 pupils, 30 teachers with a pupil to teacher ratio of 90 to 1.

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