TEACHERS and students of St Ignatius Secondary School in Lethem are frustrated regarding the water and electricity situation at the school. The school, according to parents and teachers of St Ignatius, has no drinking water and for many days the children are thirsty. No electricity in the school means that the Information Technology students will suffer this year at the primary and secondary levels. It is important to emphasise that there are water tanks at the school but no plumbing was ever done to remedy the situation by the regional administration of Lethem. According to residents of St Ignatius, the current administration is poorly administered if not poor and uninterested in the school functioning .The water and lights have been an  issue over the past years. The creek water which was used in the past has been contaminated by mining in the area. The Ministry of Education must act urgently to remove the many problems which have been hampering the school. One of the most important of these is the urgent need of plumbing so the children and teachers can have drinking water from the water tank and that the toilets  can operate.
The government has built up over the years many formal and informal institutions and systems in the Lethem district for managing its affairs.    Some of these are Primary and Secondary schools, but the administrative and management systems which we have need to be improved. When the Department of Education is fully seized of the facts that all is not well at St Ignatius Secondary School, then they would indentify and assess the problems facing the children and teachers. The following points are therefore vital in understanding the teachers’ position on this issue now affecting their performances.
There was ample evidence that many teachers , stuck in the outmoded, traditional approach to education, still regarded it the ministry of education’s failure as their fault and never  adopted strategies aimed at indentifying and eradicating weaknesses. We live in an age in which scientific principles are being adapted more and more to serve the needs of teachers and children. This is the basis of modern technology in schools. No country today can transform itself into a modern state without good governance and technological capability. The children and teachers of St Ignatius Secondary School need such a capability in order to make the fullest use of their school.