Mukinge Girls Secondary School
| Mukinge Girls Secondary School | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | |
Kasempa Zambia | |
| Information | |
| Motto | High Quality and Complete Education for the Glory of God |
| Established | 1966 |
| School district | Kasempa District |
| Grades | 8-12 |
| Website | mukingegirlsschool |
Mukinge Girls Secondary School is a Christian boarding secondary school located in Kasempa, Zambia. It was opened in 1966.
Location
The school is located about 7 km from Kasempa District headquarters in the North-Western Province of Zambia. It is sandwiched between the Mukinge Hills together with Mukinge Hospital, Mukinge Services Department of the Mission, Mukinge Hill Academy and Mukinge Primary/Day Secondary School.
History
The history of the School dates back to 1966 when it was opened with 105 girls enrolled and 4 teachers among whom was, Miss Hodnett, the first Head Teacher of the school. The School was officially opened in 1968 by the First Republican President of the Republic of Zambia, Dr. Kenneth D. Kaunda.
The initial structures were 2 classroom blocks, 3 dormitories and 2 teachers’ houses.
The School was established by the combined efforts of the missionaries and some Zambian Christians to provide secondary education for teenage girls of Kasempa and surrounding districts in North-western Province. This school was started in order to met the spiritual, social, physical and academic needs of the young women in the immediate community. By that time, the country was looking for ways to education the young women who had scarcely any western education at all.
Formation of the school
On the eve of the political independence of Zambia, towards the end of 1964, a group of leading Christians in the then Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF) and in the Christian Brethren Missions, requested the leaders of AEF if they would open a secondary school for girls in Kasempa. The missionaries were assured that the government of the Republic of Zambia would be willing to support such a project. After approval, a committee was set up in 1965 to work towards this establishment. Since the Mukinge Mission Station was under AEF, working with the national church, the Evangelical Church in Zambia, the present site of the school was chosen while it was still hilly.
Construction of the school
The school was constructed by the resident missionaries with the help of local people. The work was done under very difficult circumstances such as bad roads to transport building materials from the Copperbelt.
First teachers
The school teachers were drawn from various parts of the world, but they were to be Christians called to serve in this part of Africa. On the field, 2 qualified missionary teachers (one from Mukinge Mission Station and the other from Mutanda Mission Station in Solwezi, 160km away) were released from Primary School work to come for this project. Another teacher came from a teacher training college in Zimbabwe. At that time, the Scottish Mission was run by then a young lady who had formerly served in a school for the blind in Malawi.
Since then a number of developments have taken place at Mukinge Girls’ secondary School including changes in infrastructure, administration of the School and its teaching staff. Initially, the school was predominantly staffed with missionary teachers, but gradually a number of Zambian staff were employed to work at the school.
The first Zambian teacher came to the school in 1975, Mr. Changula, who acted as Deputy Head Teacher for two years. In addition, a number of Mukinge Girls’ Secondary School graduates came back to teach at the school beginning in 1976. By 1983, there were five former Mukinge Girls on the teaching staff list, one of whom was Mrs. Elaine Queen Sakapaji Changula.
In the early 1986, the school had its first Zambian Head Teacher, Mr. Mwanza, who passed away two years later in 1988 in a fatal road traffic accident. As more Zambian secondary school teachers were trained in the country, the composition of the staff at the School gradually changed from mostly expatriate missionary teachers to mostly Zambian. The last white missionary Head Teacher was Miss Dorothy Haile.
