Our School, Tubalange

In the area there are small farmers and their laborers, most of them having difficulties in buying the essentials like pens, books and uniforms for their children. That’s why Mthunzi has also a project for the home-based children (the children that are supported by Mthunzi but stay at home with their parents or guardians) providing for them such essential plus some regular meals.

The school offers education only from lower primary to junior secondary school (from class 1 to class 9, according to the Zambian school system), it does not offer upper secondary school education, from class 10 to class 12. It is after class 12 that a student, according to his/her results, can access a college or university.

Due to inadequate number of schools in the area to cater for the growing population of children wanting to get enrolled, there are about five hundred students at Tubalange, resulting into overcrowded classrooms. Teachers find difficult to teach in classrooms where there are up to 50 pupils. According to the Ministry of Education, a single classroom should accommodate not more than 45 pupils to guarantee proper teaching.

To cope with the problems of teachers shortage and inadequate classrooms, our Italian friends of Amani since 2003 have financed the building a 1 x 3 classroom block, and some other structures like toilets and teachers houses.

Due to the high school fees in the boarding schools, the teaching staff at Tubalange school in conjunction with the Parents Teachers Association are looking at possibilities of starting offering senior secondary lessons because some local people have been finding it difficulties to take their children to boarding schools.

All of us, Mthunzi Boys, have passed through Tubalange school. It is about one and a half kilometer from Mthunzi, on a path going through maize and beans fields. Since four years ago, when the number of Chinese has increased in Lusaka, there is even a tortoise farm, and the animals are sold to a big restaurant in town. We cannot understand how people could eat such animals!
Of the path from Mthunzi to Tubalange school, we know every bend, every tree. On it we meet our friends, like those in the picture. To the others it might look just as a impassable road, for us it is the way to education.

By Mike Mwenda