NTARA: Wednesday’s planned class boycott by teachers and learners of the Ntara Combined School situated some 60km west of Rundu, is still on.

The teachers and learners intend to boycott classes to express their dissatisfaction over water shortages at their school, which has been ongoing for over two months now.

A water tank which supplies water to the school was damaged at the beginning of August, and is still broken.

This issue was apparently reported to Regional Education Director Alfons Dikuua to have it repaired, but the teaching staff say their request has fallen on “deaf ears”.

The teachers last week told Nampa that the lack of water is affecting teaching and learning at the school, as both learners and teachers are forced to walk long distances to the Kavango River to fetch water for household chores and other activities.

“The entire teaching staff and learners regard this situation as negligence by our Ministry of Education”, charged the teachers in a letter addressed to Dikuua, and made available to this reporter.

The Ntara Combined School’s principal Florinus Mpareke confirmed to Nampa on Monday that the school still does not have water, and that no single official from the regional Education office has visited the school yet.

The Ntara Combined School offers Grades One to 10, and has a total of 459 learners and 17 teachers.