Kasungu pupils bring back lost textbooks
What do 70 textbooks look like in the eyes of learners who scramble for a tattered one?
For Tomaida Nyirenda, 15, it is not a small pile.
The Standard Eight girl at Chitunda Primary School in Kasungu District stacks them one by one until they reach half her height.
“These books may be too old for schools with plenty, but they mean a lot for us and it wasn’t easy to bring them back,” she says.
Tomaida leads Chitunda Primary School’s Learners Council, which pioneered special Fridays for children to return textbooks.
The council convinced teachers to reserve one Friday monthly when interested learners can pay K100 to swap school uniforms for casual wear.
“During Casual Fridays, we request fellow learners to bring back the textbooks they keep at home and the three who return the highest number get a small reward of K1 000 to K2 000,” explains Tomaida.
Teachers and learners’ council members use the Casual Fridays to discuss the importance of books and warn against theft.
“We don’t want the Bring Back a Textbook Campaign to encourage learners to steal books and get a cash prize for returning them, so we gather them and talk about the importance of taking care of school books,” says headteacher Blessings Chagona.
The initiative has spread beyond the Chamakala Education Zone to Kaphaizi, almost 30km away.
“The campaign confirms that children have solutions to issues affecting them. They need an ear and a seat in decision-making processes,” says Chagona.
He hails the initiative for reducing disruptive scrambles in congested classrooms.
“Before the campaign, 42 learners in Standard Seven had only five textbooks for English and mathematics, meaning each was serving seven to nine students,” he says.
Learners’ Council co-president Mike Yangairo, 11, feels relieved that his class has a mathematics book for each two-seater desk.
“Maths is my favourite subject, but it was never easy to learn when there was only one book for groups of seven to nine. The campaign has made learning simple. Even teachers have brought back 10 teachers’ guides they took home,” says the boy who dreams of becoming a teacher.
Chitunda Learners Council is one of the school groups trained with Unicef support through the Development Communication Trust in a consortium with the Story Workshop Trust under the five-year United Nations Joint Project for Girls’ Education (JPGE) in Kasungu, Dedza, Salima and Mangochi.
Chitunda is among the 30 schools participating in the programme in Kasungu.
“JPGE targets five of the 10 primary schools in Chamakala Zone. So far, Chamakala and Chatoloma have adopted the campaign. We are setting the pace to ensure children have enough books for a rewarding learning experience,” says Chagona.
And Tomaida is happy that community members attend and support the Casual Fridays initiative.
Since its onset in 2022, Chitunda learners and teachers have perfected the strategy from awarding the best-dressed student to recognising those who surrender more books.
“We want everyone to value books. So we don’t give a big cash prize, but spend more time discussing the importance of books to our school,” says Tomaida.
