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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