Ashihaya
The school feeding programme for 180 learners at Ashihaya Junior Primary School in Okankolo Constituency has been suspended for the past five months because water ponds have dried up, as a result of drought.
San learners encouraged to attend class at Ashihaya have thrown in the towel on grounds they cannot attend class while hungry. School principal at Ashihaya, Agness Amupolo, says apart from the suspension of the school-feeding programme, the school does not have any drinking water.
The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that Amupolo is compelled to drive her own vehicle a distance
of 10 kilometres to get water for all the school’s needs such as cooking, drinking and bathing from Onghumbula village – which has depleted her purse.
Children are coming to school without bathing and their school uniforms are dirty and they are smelly because there is no water, Amupolo’s fellow teachers confirmed at the rural school.
She is forced to bring water from home for the learners to wash their hands as well as drink, which will not be sustainable in the long-run if government does not intervene.
Amupolo said the school has no toilets and both teachers and learners relieve themselves in the nearby bushes when nature calls.
She said teachers usually wait until it is dark before they can melt into nearby bushes to relieve themselves and to avoid being seen by learners when they squat behind bushes close to the school.
During the day, sometimes teachers and the principal use buckets as toilets in their makeshift shacks, which they discard at night. “As you can see, the school is still new, and there is only shrubs you cannot help yourself there because children can follow you and look at what you are doing. You just have to go back in the room and relief yourself in a bucket that you can empty after school,” said the principal.
Ashihaya is a new junior primary school established last year and has pre-primary to Grade 4. Since last year, the teachers have been without toilets while running water is a pipe dream at the school. San children, who were also motivated to come to school as a result of the school feeding programme, are now less motivated, as they have nothing to eat both at home and at school.
Teachers are also compelled to share their food with the learners.
“We buy about eight loaves of bread a day for children, two of which are given to each class because children cannot concentrate with empty stomachs,” said one of the teachers.Teachers said sometimes learners dropout of school because they are hungry but they (teachers) follow them up to persuade them to get back to school.
There are four teachers at the school, who all sleep in corrugated iron shacks that they erected for themselves.