Maravi

LETTERS - Corruption, Literacy

Public funds expenditure
By Sunday Chanda
Wednesday February 13, 2008 [03:00]

I wish to congratulate The Post for being the most consistent informer in the nation. There is rampant corruption and gross mismanagement in the Mwanawasa regime as confirmed by the allocation of K48 billion towards the President’s health.

This allocation is not only immoral but savagery in a country faced with alarming levels of poverty and disease. If President Mwanawasa has any conscience in him, he must not accept this allocation because even as he is enjoying medical facilities in the UK, Zambians are dying in our hospitals, whose mortuaries are more congested than hospital wards. Unless this government realises that hospitals in Zambia have become conveyor belts to the graveyard, this reckless spending of resources will continue.

Maybe the Minister of Finance needs to tell the nation what President Mwanawasa is suffering from that requires such unrealistic allocations to be made in order to keep him functional.

All President Mwanawasa needs to do is to take a visit to the so-called Filter Clinic at the University Teaching Hospital to understand why we are saying it is immoral to have all that money to himself. Zambians are dying like flies while their President has an allocation that can permit him to seek medication from the moon.

Seemingly President Mwanawasa has no problems with expenditure of public resources as we have seen with the expenses attributed to the National Constitution Conference (NCC) at the taxpayer’s cost. This government is having serious problems recognising the real issues in the country.

The levels of greed in this government cannot go unchecked because Zambia belongs to all of us and let us ensure that our leaders account for their actions, especially those that have a direct bearing on the Zambian people.
Zambia’s infrastructure is incomparable to what the rest of the region has to offer and as if that were not enough, this is one country that has failed to manage the floods even when these could have been easily handled had we had a serious and listening government in office.



http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=37531

Reading culture
By Saka Sokontwe
Wednesday February 13, 2008 [03:00]

It is not surprising today to find children graduating from primary and secondary school in Zambia unable to read. Generally, there has been a profound change in the reading culture from one where children wholeheartedly embraced reading as fun and rewarding to another where children today regard reading as boring and non-purposeful.

Findings in a survey done to assess basic literacy of children aged 7-10 showed that only 19 per cent of children were able to read a single short sentence in their preferred language (CSO 2002, ZDHS, and ZDES). The rating was based on whether they could read an entire sentence or part of a sentence or could not read at all.

It can be concluded from the findings that the poor reading culture has become a part of our inheritance and is here to stay if nothing is done to remedy the situation.

Of course, one would ask: why is there such a poor reading culture among Zambians in general and children in particular? Compounding this problem is the education system which has put emphasis on quantity (increased access to education) at the expense of quality. This has resulted in large classes in most schools, making it difficult for teachers to appropriately teach reading.

In the same vain the same person who is supposed to foster the growth of children’s appreciation of book language, story structures and depth of meaning has equally lost the culture of reading. This laxity by teachers makes it impossible for them to practice the culture of reading.

Furthermore, most schools lack non-text reading and local learning materials. Majority of pupils read only prescribed text books in order for them to pass the examinations. To make matters worse, no conventional libraries are accessible to children to provide these non-text reading materials. If a library exists in school, there are no qualified librarians to run it. This has made poor reading culture amongst children become a persistent eyesore for the government and many organisations.

The phrase ‘poor reading culture’ will only cease to be when we have in place public and private partnerships, dialogue and exchanges on how to improve reading in schools.
The government and organisations involved in education programmes in general and reading in particular must look beyond project design and implementation and make paradigm shift towards understanding what the children are learning in the classrooms.
So far, there are a number of organisations trying to implement programmes in reading but one wonders what the impact has been so far.

As Ben Carson put it in his book Think Big, those who have already achieved must show their concern by grabbing others’ hands and crying "here is the treasure chest of the world" - the public library or a bookstore.

Labels: LITERACY

posted by MrK @ 3:10 PM