It's ridiculous to close the Evelyn Hone, says Saki
It's ridiculous to close the Evelyn Hone, says SakiBy Patson Chilemba
Monday November 19, 2007 [03:01]
IT is ridiculous to close the Evelyn Hone College, United Liberal Party (ULP) president Sakwiba Sikota has said. Commenting on the closure of Evelyn Hone by government, Sikota said the closure could have been avoided if government prioritised education through increased funding.
“We’ve got an education crisis and government should take it as such so that perennial closures in higher institutions should come to an end. This is avoidable if government could have been giving adequate funding and priority to these institutions,” he said.
Sikota said the cost of the closures was very phenomenal in that there were disruptions to the school calendar as well as re-planning of the academic year.
“It shows lack of seriousness on the part of government. It’s ridiculous. It is something which should not have happened. If we don’t have proper planning at that level, then all our plans of economic development will fail,” he said.
Sikota further said the presence of the police during the time the students would be writing their exams is not required.
“Having police presence on any academic institution is not good to the proper learning environment. You are already stressed when you are going for the exams, and if you have people with guns, it’s not good for a learning environment,” said Sikota.
Sikota said the institution should be re-opened immediately because Zambia was in a hurry to develop. He said the country should have as many people trained as possible. The government on Tuesday last week closed the Evelyn Hone College indefinitely.
During a press briefing, science and technology minister Peter Daka said despite all the measures put in place by government to address the problems of poor water reticulation and sanitation at the institution, students had continued to boycott classes and behave in a manner 'threatening the peace and stability' at the college.
The students were demanding the resignation of their director of academics Ellan Kamfwa and protested against the water problems that had hit the institution.
Labels: EVELYN HONE, SAKWIBA SIKOTA, ULP
posted by MrK @ 7:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home