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Little is being done to improve health, education – Nkombo

Little is being done to improve health, education – Nkombo
By Ernest Chanda
Sun 06 Dec. 2009, 04:00 CAT

GOVERNMENT is doing very little to improve service delivery in the health and education sectors, Mazabuka Central UPND member of parliament Garry Nkombo has observed.

In an interview, Nkombo said nothing much was being done by government to improve the two areas of health and education and give hope to Zambians.
He said it was a pity that standards in the two sectors had been compromised by poor government policies.

“In the health sector, I think the situation speaks volumes for itself. If you go into a public hospital today, the first thing that greets you is a stench. This is because important components that can help promote hygiene in hospitals have been neglected. The incinerators where hospital waste is supposed to be properly disposed of are non-functional,” Nkombo said.

“And it all comes down to a demotivated workforce among the frontline medical staff. Our government has also failed to account for donor money, which a few months ago resulted in donors withholding support to the Ministry of Health. This is an indication of failure on the part of government. I hear that some donors have resumed funding, but still, discipline is important in the management of resources.”

Nkombo said it was also a known fact that there were no essential medical facilities in rural areas, resulting in the collapse of the health sector.
And on education, Nkombo observed that the standards in the sector have been compromised by the removal of the cut off point system at Grade 9 level.
“While the removal of the cut off point at Grade 9 level makes sense, the result of that action has totally compromised the education sector. People have to understand that there is a difference between educating and schooling. When you talk about educating you are talking about building a person’s mental faculty,” Nkombo said.

“Right now we have a ratio of one teacher to 85 pupils, a situation that will only allow a teacher to have less than half a minute of personal contact with each pupil in one lesson. This reduces the teacher-pupil contact time and results in poor delivery on the part of the teacher. We have pupils who qualify to tertiary institutions and only end up increasing the drop-out level there. All this is because their secondary certificates are raw. I therefore challenge anyone to deny that our educational and health standards have been compromised.”

Labels: EDUCATION, GARRY NKOMBO, HEALTHCARE

posted by MrK @ 4:22 AM