04 Jul 2023

About 92 Nata Senior Secondary School pupils whose belongings were gutted by fire last week Thursday are undergoing counselling for trauma.

Briefing the Tutume District Council finance and education committee members who visited the school on Monday, the chief education officer for Tutume region, Mr Shadrack Moffat said they had engaged therapists to assist the affected male learners.

Mr Moffat said they had contacted the Ministry of Education and Skills Development seeking assistance for the affected learners who would be sitting for their Form Five final examinations this year.

A council representative, Mr Moyonchena Nkhori said it was high time government facilities were insured so that it did not take long for the infrastructure to be repaired.

Briefing the councillors on the fire outbreak, Nata Senior Secondary School head Mr Gaositege Chakalisa said they received a report, at about 620pm when the pupils were attending evening studies, that the second floor of block B of the boys’ hostel was on fire.

Mr Chakalisa said they swiftly notified relevant stakeholders, including the Sowa fire brigade and also ensured that pupils remained calm while they tried to save some of their belongings on the first and ground floors of the building.

Furthermore, he explained that the cause of fire was still unknown as they were still awaiting the technical team from the ministry to carry out the assessment. Mr Chakalisa said they had also contacted authorities regarding the accommodation of the affected pupils.

The school head highlighted that in 2019 the boys’ hostel was damaged by fire and it had not yet been repaired. He noted that the 2019 fire broke out at the time when form five pupils had completed their final examinations and had left school hence there was enough accommodation to move the remaining learners at the time.

Mr Chakalisa appealed to council and other stakeholders to help learners with anything since some of them were rural area dwellers and relied on government for help during their stay in the school. Ends