Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) has hailed government’s plans to construct girl’s hostels and three additional teacher training colleges in the proposed 2018/2019 national budget.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has gotten the lion’s share of 166 billion kwacha out of the proposed 1.5 trillion kwacha in the 2018/2019 national budget.

CSEC Executive Director Benedicto Kondowe said the move will help to improve the quality of education in the country.

“Construction of girl’s hostels will ensure that girls who are most often vulnerable group are given an opportunity to learn without major impediments because girls cannot afford walking on a daily basis especially where secondary schools are far away,” he said.

Kondowe said the construction of teacher training colleges is also important because it is a demand that the country needs to deal with.

“We need teachers year-in year-out and therefore we need to have institutions which will be empowered to produce those teachers,” he added.

Kondowe said the additional colleges will also reduce the high teacher pupil ratio in the country.

“Construction of additional teacher training colleges will ensure that we will have good supply of teachers available to be deployed in our various schools and we will be able to train quality teachers for the education sector,” Kondowe said.