Construction of Voi Girls Secondary School in Taita Taveta is being pushed for completion by area parents. The Sh230 million school project has stalled because the contractor is owed more than Sh70 million. Parents had asked the government in 2015 to move the school to another site to provide a better learning environment.
The school, in Tanzania village, will be relocated to Vindo to escape noise pollution from trains on the Standard Gauge Railway. Parents blame students’ poor grades on the noise. The old Voi Girls was set up to accommodate students from low-income families in Voi constituency. It has more than 600 students.
The new campus, whose construction started in 2019 and is 95% complete, is yet to be connected to electricity and a reliable water source. The grounds have not been levelled. Final touches also need to be applied in the kitchen and dining room. Speaking at the site, parents, led by Chairperson Juma Kombora, said the old school sits near the SGR line and this disrupts learning.
Noise pollution
The ultra-modern school will have four streams for each class and will accommodate more than 1,000 students. It will also have more classrooms, teachers’ houses, laboratories, a library, an administration block, a dining hall and a modern kitchen, as well as playgrounds for various sports.
“We call upon the government to fast-track this project so that our children can come and learn here. The current location is unconducive to learning. The project was to be completed in March last year but it has stalled. It was a one-year contract so it has delayed for over a year,” said Kombora.
“The old school is congested and lacks the necessary learning infrastructure. We are pushing for this new school because it will be larger with modern learning facilities and will take in more students. Students lose up to two hours of learning time daily because of noise pollution from trains,” he added.
