The Chiúre Secondary School is one of the largest educational
establishments in the district, a school that has welcomed and trained
government officials, including former ministers, national, provincial, and
district directors, as well as leaders from various sectors.
Chiúre Secondary School is a
building constructed by the priests, or rather, during the colonial period,
with a structure that leaves much to be desired. It was a great reference,
after the Mariri Training School in the Ancuabe district, a project that should
not be missed or forgotten, especially for being an educational establishment
in a district, as its design reflects a great effort to accommodate students
from different parts of the country. In fact, even today, this school is widely
remembered. Anyone who studied there never forgets it, as reflected in the
local expression "WAPATIRI ONAVIRIYA VA," in Emakhwua language, which
means "AT THE PRIEST'S SCHOOL, ONE PASSES THROUGH HERE."
This is the slogan of
everyone who passed through that place, and each one remembers it as if it were
today. However, today, the school has started to lose credibility for simple
reasons. Since the colonial era, the school had a boarding system, or as it was
affectionately called at that time, the "LAR" (Home), with "LAR
A" being for girls. The girls did not have classrooms; they only had
dormitories, where they lived with the nuns.
"LAR B" was for
boys and had both dormitories and classrooms for everyone. According to the
elders, that place was considered a center for the formation of a "new
man" because everything was of high quality, and the classes were taught
by priests and nuns.
But how did the school lose
credibility?
In 2005, Chiúre Secondary
School lost its boarding center, ceasing to accommodate internal students. I
confess that it was from this point that the school's decline began. Students
began renting houses to attend classes at the school, and this led to
structural problems, such as roof collapses, as some of the wood could no
longer support the weight due to its age, and the school began calling for
urgent rehabilitation.
Some work was done by
previous directors, but nothing significant was achieved. The school continued
to deteriorate, and eventually, it became necessary to build new classrooms, as
the cost of rehabilitating the old ones was higher than constructing new ones.
With the new classrooms, some voices are calling for the school to regain its
status as a boarding school, which is always presented during the opening
ceremonies of the school year.
This year, during the
opening ceremony of the 2025 school year, the school principal emphasized that
the main need of the school is to have an equipped and fully operational
boarding center in order to continue receiving students from various parts of
the country.
It is indeed necessary to
continue forming a "new man. "Chiúre Secondary School is a school of
the people, a school where everyone who passed through it would like to see
their children studying in that educational establishment. (Celestino Carlos)
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