Kola (Fria): there is an elementary school here where studies stop in the 2nd year

Kola, a district located 62 kilometers from the city of Fria, in the sub-prefecture of Banguigny, has a very special primary school. In this school the cycle is limited to 2^th year. A situation that can be explained by the lack of teachers in this locality, learned a journalist from Guineematin.com who went there.

The Kola district has had an elementary school for 20 years, but has not yet had any candidates for the seventh grade entrance exam.^th year. According to the testimonies collected on the spot, only one promotion of this school managed to get out of 5^th year. All the others left school after only two years of schooling.

Alsény Dionkébou Diallo, President of the District of Kola in Fria

“This school was built in 2003. But until now it is practically not functional, because since that date we have not had pupils who have reached 6^th year”, regrets Alsény Dionkébou Diallo, president of the Kola district, before explaining the reasons for this deplorable situation.

“We have a problem related to the lack of teachers. Each time, only one teacher is deployed here. And even with that, people don’t spend more than two years with us. Anyone who comes to teach for two years is transferred elsewhere. After he’s gone, it can be a year or two before you get another teacher.

And when he arrives he says that the children who had already started lessons don’t have the level to continue where they left off. So some start over and some drop out of school altogether, because people think they’ve aged. We have been in this situation since the construction of this school”.

The school in question consists of a building with three classrooms, only one of which is functional this year. The only teacher who is on duty in this village gathers two educational groups in this room to give them lessons.

“It’s nothing new. We have never had two teachers in our school, there is always one. So when we have a class of 1^weather year and a class of 2^th year, the master or teacher brings them together in the same room to give lessons. It has always been like this,” says Alsény Dionkébou Diallo.

When our team of journalists visited this village on January 11, 2023, the Kola district chairman was still worried. Because since the teacher left for the end of the year holidays, she hasn’t returned yet. The local official fears that she too will never return, as others have done before.

But why don’t the next teachers in this district stay long? Our interlocutor believes that this is certainly due to the isolation of the locality: impassable road, absence of telephone network, absence of drinking water… He explains that they have to travel a long distance to draw water from the level of a spring located in the middle of the bush . A source that shares with domestic and wild animals.

“These are problems we cannot solve. Otherwise, the teachers who come here, we house them, we feed them, we do everything for them. There is none of them who can complain to us that they have not had good food or lodging here. But that’s all we can.

We want our children to study, but we don’t have that option yet. We have a building there, but there are no teachers. This really worries us. We ask the government and all those who can do something so that our children can study to help us in this direction,” said the local official.

Note that this school is also falling into disrepair. Today, with its crumbling walls and collapsed ceilings, the building no longer meets the standards of a school. As for the management, closed for many years, it is no longer usable.