‘GOVT ACTED LATE, DAMAGE ALREADY DONE’

MANZINI – The damage has already been done. This is the assessment by schools administrators following the food crisis in schools in the country, which hit hard on most institutions during the current term. Government finally distributed food as of yesterday and more is yet to be taken to other schools countrywide.

Sphasha Dlamini, the Secretary General (SG) of the Swaziland Association of Schools Administrators (SASA), said they were grateful that finally, government was delivering food in schools.
The SG said the food would be a relief to them, parents and pupils as they feared the worst was yet to happen if the crisis was not addressed. “However, in terms of performances, the damage is already done and the arrival of food at this time will not change much.”

She said the frood was being delivered at a time when teaching the pupils was almost over as from next week, most of them would be sitting for their mid-term examinations.
She said the citical time, that of learning in a healthy state, had passed and the pupils were without food for a long time. “During that period, pupils were not concentrating in class because they were hungry and as a result, there is little or nothing that they were able to learn.”

She said usually, during this time of the year, pupils would be revising in preparation for the mid-term examinations but after what had happened, there was nothing they could revise.
Furthermore, Dlamini said in the last term of schools, the pupils would have about a month to learn before they sit for their final examinations.
“We are not pre-empting poor results but the damage has been done. However, as teachers we were trained to motivate pupils and they will do their level best to cover for the lost time in order to improve the performances of the scholars,” she said.

On the same note, the SG said as schools administrators, they encouraged pupils to pick themselves up and try to overcome the situation because this was their future.
Meanwhile, Dlamini expressed hope that the present crisis would be a learning curve for government.

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