Schools
and other Public Facilities
Boarding
and Day Schools located in the rural areas lack electricity. They are
forced to use fossil fuel generators to run a few hours in the evening
before lights off. The money for the fuel is normally extra fees loaded
on the students' parents making education very expensive.
School
Labs and some teaching aids can not be run without electricity. Therefore
rendering many of rural schools poor in National Examination performance.
Rural boarding schools have less light hours than their urban counterparts.
Most rural
schools are strategically located on hilltops. They stand out in the
community as a symbol of aspiration and are geographically well placed
for wind power harvesting. Some have seen their roofs ripped off by
strong wind currents yet this powerful natural resource still flows
freely above the school roof while the facilities are in darkness at
night.
This sad
reality can be changed if the school boards and local leaders thought
of Renewable Energy Sources.
 
Computer,
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) classes like these are
only possible with the availability of electricity. The job market today
expects workers to be computer literate and technology is moving the
world towards computerization of several services.
Another
sad reality is that most rural high schools have received donations
from overseas donors of more than 20 computers. These computers still
lay idol in their boxes since there is no power to run the equipment.
With the school generator computer classes can only be run for a few
hours in a week which is quite inadequate for such a practical intensive
curriculum.
Our schools
have workshops to train our future workers in technical skills. The
sad picture is that only urban schools are able to run this curriculum
effectively. Rural schools only demonstrate tools during the so called
practical classes. We keep on ignoring the skills we are supposed to
impart to our students and only wonder how slow technological development
is in Africa. We end up with book people and not handson people.
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brochure here
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