For three years, Dorothy Gomani has been straining her eyes to study in candle light every night on her hostel bed.<\/p>\n
She says this seems to be a normal life to the 150 girls at the boarding facility for the school; where more than three students gather around one candle light to study every night.<\/p>\n
This would have been a usual story if it happened at a self-boarding or Gomani\u2019s home village in Zomba but this is happening within the premises of her school, Namalomba Community Day Secondary School (CDSS) situated in Traditional Authority Kalembo in Balaka.<\/p>\n
This group of students is not the first, neither is it known to be the last.<\/p>\n
Students who have been learning at Namalomba CDSS since it was opened<\/p>\n
in 2004 have studied using candles or torches until they sit for their Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations.<\/p>\n
The school was built by Jica, which also installed solar panels mainly for lighting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have solar power but it\u2019s very unreliable. We only have power for an hour and it goes off on its own. At times it doesn\u2019t switch on even after we attempt to switch it on several times,\u201d laments Gomani a form three student at the school.<\/p>\n
She further says most of the times students share a candle to study due to inadequate money to buy candles.<\/p>\n
Sharon Sambani also a form three student at the same school says she is aware that candle or torch light is hazardous to her eyes but she has no choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have a choice but to use either a candle or a small torch for reading. I\u2019m just hopeful that government will consider us very soon,\u201d says Sambani, an aspiring nurse.<\/p>\n
Headmaster of the school, Alfred Magumbala, says the electricity problem at the school is now getting out of hand since the solar power is becoming increasingly unreliable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m afraid we are breeding future leaders with sight problems and government will spend more money in treating their sight than it would spend on bringing electricity here,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n
According to Magumbala, the school needs at least K9 million to have electricity, a thing he says the school and Parents Teacher Association (PTA) cannot afford.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter noting that it\u2019s taking long for the ministry to assist us, we made a separate application for electricity at Escom and we were told that we need not less than K9 million to have electricity here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Magumbala adds that the school has 359 students, 150 of them are girls who are in boarding within the school premises.<\/p>\n
He reveals that last year, the school achieved 100 per cent Junior Certificate Examination (JCE) pass rate and had 46 per cent MSCE pass rate.<\/p>\n
Parliamentarian for Balaka Central East, Yaumi Mpaweni says the school has been asking government for electricity for many years but nothing has changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs parliamentarian for the area, I will make sure I push for this issue because our children are suffering,\u201d he told The Daily Times.<\/p>\n
Executive Director for Civil Society Education Coalition, Benedicto Kondowe says it is unfortunate that government has not paid attention to this problem for over 10 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is unacceptable. The situation is demotivating and not empowering. We may end up losing these girls through drop outs,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Kondowe also says the girls are likely to perform badly in their MSCE examinations since a good environment for preparation is highly compromised.<\/p>\n
\u201cA candle isn\u2019t ideal for studying, worse so if it\u2019s shared among three or four people. The girl students are preparing in a very stressful setting which would contribute to poor performance during examinations,\u201d he observes.<\/p>\n
Kondowe urges government to do something about this situation since it is very unlikely that the school can raise K9 million to have electricity at the school.<\/p>\n
Education policy analyst Roy Hauya says even though this is not an isolated case, this is an unfortunate situation in the modern world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is worse for these girls because the darkness may expose them to sexual harassment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hauya also questions why Escom which is a parastatal is failing to provide electricity to a public institution yet it is a government body.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very unfortunate that this parastatal seems to put money first at the expense of a fellow public institution. I can\u2019t entirely blame the Ministry of Education but Escom in a way for not having an interest,\u201d he stresses.<\/p>\n
Hauya adds: \u201cThis is where we get things wrong. Escom is owned by everybody and it\u2019s not there to make money but serve the public like students of Namalomba. It is also supposed to support the ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology spokesperson, Manfred Ndovi says the ministry is not aware of this situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For three years, Dorothy Gomani has been straining her eyes to study in candle light every night on her hostel bed. She says this seems to be a normal life to the 150 girls at the boarding facility for the school; where more than three students gather around one candle light to study every night. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4042,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions\/4042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}