Tuesday 28 February 2012

REVIVE ARTS AND CULTURE - MINISTER


Luapula Province Minister Rodgers Mwewa has called for the revival of culture and the Arts at Mansa College of Education where the department dealing with the Arts has been abandoned and neglected for a long time.
The Minister made the appeal when he visited the institution recently during his familiarization tour of public institutions in districts of Luapula Province.
He said it was sad that the open theatre facility that used to be a hive of activity when he was a school pupil in the 1990s had been abandoned and the space was overgrown with stubborn elephant grass when the facility was still essential for training teachers and pupils in the various arts from which they could develop skills for  a living in later life.
He said the Arts department at the institution should be revived because not all pupils could be good in science subjects but those good at the arts should be encouraged to take the arts and earn a living from their talents.
The minister said he noted with was sadness that the musical skills of playing a guitar, banjo, malimba, meaningful beating of drums and other skills were dying out and no one seems to be concerned.
He said he observed that in many public functions, singers were just miming as musical tunes were already inbuilt in the musical organs which was not the case in the past.
He said the College should give special attention to the revival of the Arts Department so that the talents and skills become students’ tool for their artistic abilities.
And College Principal Tresford Musakanya admitted that the Arts department of the Institution has not been given the required attention as it should have been.
He acknowledged that the arts played a meaningful role in the development of a human being and that the department should be given the prominence that it had in the past.
“Though the department was not taken seriously in the past, we feel that something could be done to bring it back to its earlier prominence,” he said.
ZANIS

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