This year, NATICC commemorated the Day of the African Child at Masiphula primary school under Shiselweni 1 constituency, an area characterised by widespread poverty, high rates of gender-based violence and teenage pregnancy based on testimonials given by students and community leaders. The theme for the day was “Inclusive, Quality and Transformative Education in Eswatini. The Time is Now!”. Although various speakers, including NATICC Director Mr Sisekelo Nzima, ventilated the key message for the day extensively in a bid to advocate for inclusive, quality and transformative education in Eswatini, the reality on the ground is far from being conducive for achieving such an ambitious dream. The truth is, as a country we need to drastically improve various aspects of the current national school curriculum and infrastructure for the system to be truly inclusive, let alone the need to capacitate teachers for them to be really inclusive in providing quality and transformative education for all learners.

A majority of teachers are nearing retirement which inadvertently means that a majority of them, especially those in rural areas, still operate based on outdated knowledge they acquired during their tertiary days, decades prior. We all have heard about the shortage of teachers in schools at this point, yet our government is still hiring teachers on contract basis, especially for teachers who recently completed their training, the very same teachers with new and relevant information in line with the theme for the day. Teachers are literally the gears that keep the machine, which is government, turning. They are the ones that produce future Economists, Doctors and Engineers that will level up the country in terms of development

thus achieving the King’s dream of Eswatini becoming a first world country, yet government is unwilling to invest in them. One of the students at Masiphula primary by the name of Simile Zwane highlighted various logistical and infrastructural challenges that exist within their school and community. She first pointed out that the school lacks clean piped water and thus have to fetch water from Masiphula river which is often dirty and contaminated, let alone being a significant distance away from the school. “The river is very far from the school, that might lead us to being raped, and we would not even get help when we scream because it is far from any residence”, she said during her speech as a student representative. She also highlighted the issue of food shortages despite the government sponsored Free Primary Education (FPE) program whereby all public primary schools in the country get free bursaries and food for all learners as part of the FPE package. However, government is struggling to cater for all schools in the country and even if food is delivered, it is often insufficient resulting in students getting smaller unsatisfactory portions. According to Simile, “The issue of food shortages is a huge challenge for us because some students only get food from the school, outside of that there is nothing”.

Additionally, she highlighted that people with disabilities are not catered for by the school due to lack of resources. “Those children are not able to learn in our school because our school is not built in such a way that it could house those children. Schools that could cater for their needs such as Qinisweni are very far for them to reach and utilize”, she said during her speech. She also mentioned that the school is very far from their homes hence finding themselves waking up at dawn to prepare for school and arrive on time. “When we get to school, we are already tired and we sleep hence we cannot learn anything as a result. Some of us are forced to drop out of school thus leading to the high numbers of dropouts that you see today”, she said. So, if there are still such schools in the country experiencing such challenges in this day and age, I would argue that we not are ready for inclusive, quality and transformative education because that would re[1]quire every school in the country to be able to enrol any student regardless of their race, religion, cultural beliefs, sexual orientation, physical and mental abilities or lack thereof. For this dream to become a reality, government needs to invest heavily in teachers, schools’ infrastructure and technology. Looking at the current status quo, it would be safe to assume that we are decades away from achieving this dream.