Sinda district commissioner Paradious Sakala says marrying off children brings more problems than good and parents must instead focus on educating their offspring.

Speaking when he handed over a renovated classroom block worth K70,000 to the community in Sinda constituency, Tuesday, Sakala said education was the only weapon which could be used to eradicate poverty.

“School is the weapon that can redeem us from poverty and other devastating issues that we might face but it’s sad that education is not valued by some of you parents because all you see in the beauty of your children is money. We love money so much thinking marrying off our beautiful children especially girls will make us rich yet you attract more problems. Let’s not sell our children to marriage because their beauty is not for money but bright future, Sakala said.

“Look some of you are not educated, you can’t read, you can’t write and you still want to go somewhere for someone to read a letter for you? Educate your own child so that he or she can write and read for you. We are living in a computer generation such that without education you won’t enjoy anything, the messages even in our phones it’s mostly in English and you want children to remain uneducated! no we can’t go like that. Today we are handing over the block and it needs children to be there but if you marry them off who will utilize the block.”

He challenged teachers to inculcate good morals in pupils seeing that they spent more time with them than with parents.

“Teach children good morals, teach them things that can benefit them now and in future but not songs and dances ati two by two catappilar! That way you are fueling HIV/AIDS in some way but teach them things that will inculcate good discipline in them,” said Sakala

And PTA chairperson Innocent Ngoma thanked government for the block saying the school had a lot of pupils but lacked classroom space.

“We would like to thank government for the block. Truly we have a lot of pupils here and the challenge is classes and I am pretty sure this one will take us a step ahead and for that, we say thank you and when resources are available keep assisting us,” said Ngoma.

Meanwhile, village headmen Seya Abasi Phiri, who spoke on behalf of all traditional leaders, appealed for help from government saying their subjects survived on mangoes.

“Bwana DC we are dying here with hunger because these people you see survive on mangoes and soon the fruits will finish how are we going to survive? So we appeal to government to help us with relief maize and we believe you the commissioner will speak for us to the rightful offices,” said Phiri

He also lamented that evoucher had brought so much confusion and asked government to quickly intervene because a lot of names had been removed from the system without any reason, a situation which worried a lot of farmers.

Meanwhile Kasangazi area councillor Jonathan Phiri thanked government, communities and their subjects for the cooperation shown during the renovation of the block and urged them to keep the cooperation intact.

The block was first built in 1963 and in 2012, it became a danger to the teachers and pupils a situation which made government to intervene by funding it in 2017.