Ministry has misfired

| Thursday January 28, 2010 00:00

Their situation is unenviable. They need funds that these music shows generate. They need to expose students to music and even allow students to see these musical stars in action so that they broaden their horizons.

In other villages, school halls serve as community halls as they are the only bigger indoor venues. In such villages if there is any bigger indoor activity it can only take place at the school or the entire village will miss out on such events. In other words school halls, in rural areas more than in better-resourced major villages and towns, serve an important socio-economic function in the life of the community. In these communities, the school hall is an efficient bridge in bringing the school closer to the community.

It is at the community hall that the community gets to entertain itself and appreciates cultural growth and diversity. The school community offers the village an opportunity to interact with the wider world.

To musicians the school halls, particularly in far flung places that have been ignored for a long time give them an opportunity to access areas that they would otherwise have been unable to and in the process they get the much-needed income and thus growing our local music industry.

The flipside of this wider consideration is that there have been reports that when music festivals are held in schools show-goers come in with drinks of their choice including even alcohol. There has been some measure of disquiet that the bringing of alcohol at schools could send a negative message to students or even encourage them to imbibe. This is legitimate and cannot be dismissed.

Further there have been reports that festivals despite all the good entertainment value that they bring to school they leave behind a hail of destruction. Chairs and windows are damaged and this leaves the school with a heavy burden of repairing and replacing often at a great cost to the teaching and learning operations. If one takes into consideration that these halls are not fitted with ablutions it compounds the problem. In these instances every tree or classroom wall could turn into a urinary.

All these are weighty considerations and we believe that school authorities should have considered all factors and even engaged with stakeholders such as musicians, BOMU and the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture. Perhaps the solution could have been to terminate night shows and ask musicians to improve security or ban the taking of liquor in concerts that take place inside school halls. There is still time to engage one another.

                                                     Today's thought

                     'Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.'

                                                  - Dale Carnegie