Prime
Why should a nursery school have a swimming pool?
The pool at Acorns Nursery School where the poor soul Sunshine Barasa drowned would have had me gasping for breath too, if I accidently fell into it! It was that huge. But that is not the only huge pool that is used by toddlers as young as three!
Have any of you visited these so-called play areas where our young ones lose themselves in innocent fun? You would be gobsmacked at the glaring security lapses at these venues.
We have toys that ceased operating a long time ago. We have play swings operated by maids of parents that have brought their children to play. We have mini-bars to cater for the alcohol thirst of the parent. We have pools with all sorts of children jumping in and out. We have bouncing castles with no age restriction on them meaning that a one-year-old and a nine-year-old will tussle it out together jumping up and down ferociously despite their age-gap. We simply have madness around the so-called schools.
You see Ugandans are quite an evil bunch. Yes, those are harsh words, but most of us are. Most Ugandans will erect a sub-standard play-area, have it advertised massively as the in-thing for children entertainment and then get weird looking individuals to “look after the children” as they play and employ a horde of waitresses to serve liquor just to earn an extra buck.
No one seems to know anything about children handling, security, hygiene or age-grouping in relation to the kind of entertainment offered to the children. And those are the owners of these nursery schools and play-areas.
Now when it comes to our parents, so long as the play area can offer him a secluded seat in a corner and offer him sticks of pork and a “child minder” to “look after” the child as they play, then that’s it!
How can someone drown in a pool and they are discovered after 30 minutes? Goodness, if I had the powers, goodness knows what I’d have done to the school. Why would even a nursery school have such a pool? How about an inflatable kind? Tell me how a three- year-old’s development as a human being can be so hugely influenced by a swimming pool?
You see madness has crept into our society at such an alarming rate. Right from the parents to those that handle our young ones, be it the maid or teacher. You find so-called “international” having nothing “international” in their setting right from the building structure to the syllabus apart from charging parents in dollars!
And being the silly parents we are, we never question such obvious loopholes but just chest-thump amongst fellow parents of how “my children are in international schools!”
Bless Sunshine Barasa but damn all those that are in charge of our children.
