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Dr Godfrey Gandawa

Auxilia Katongomara, Chronicle Reporter
GOVERNMENT is mobilising resources to equip rural schools with science laboratories to bridge the gap between rural and urban schools in terms of science education.

About $3 million is being mobilised to create Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) hubs at rural schools to enable them to teach STEM subjects.

Responding to a question in Parliament, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Deputy Minister Dr Godfrey Gandawa said they were already working on equipping rural schools.

The Deputy Minister was responding to a question posed by Binga South MP, Gabbuza Joel Gabbuza, who wanted to know if there was a deliberate policy to support rural pupils to benefit from STEM.

“We are aware that most of our schools in the rural areas do not have the facilities that will allow our students to benefit from STEM, which gives a gap between the rural community and urban schools.

“We are mobilising resources in the Ministry to the tune of $3 million to try and assist the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to set up what we call STEM hubs in each district,” said Dr Gandawa.

He said they were planning to start the programme in August, and they were still mobilising the required resources.

“We will advise the districts and which schools that we will fund to set these laboratories in schools,” said Dr Gandawa.

“The STEM initiative as well as the implementation of the enrolment exercise is guided by the principles of our national Constitution which stipulate that there shall be no discrimination on the basis of, among others, gender and disability. This accounts for the fact that our application forms and admission notifications do not capture statistics on students or applicants with disabilities since they are all treated equally and without discrimination”.

— @AuxiliaK