{"id":82276,"date":"2026-04-10T01:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest"},"modified":"2026-04-10T01:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:14:41","slug":"pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest","title":{"rendered":"Pupil Not Catholic Should Enroll Elsewhere Says Priest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Zambia. <\/strong><\/span>A LUSAKA based Catholic priest has backed the decision by management at Matero Boys Secondary School, a grant-aided Catholic mission school run by the Society of Mary, to suspend more than 200 pupils who absconded from a scheduled day of prayer last Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The pupils are said to have stayed away from the prayers despite being informed about the event in advance by school authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Management has since barred the affected pupils from writing their end of term tests as part of disciplinary action.<\/p>\n<p>School manager Fr Cullistus Jeje said the suspension is in line with the institution\u2019s disciplinary procedures.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the matter, Fr Arthur Ntembula said Catholic schools like any other institutions operate under specific rules and expectations including participation in Mass and other spiritual programmes organised by the school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf your child is not Catholic and doesn\u2019t want to attend these, he or she shouldn\u2019t have enrolled there in the first place,\u201d said Fr Ntembula.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, many former pupils and members of the public who attended mission schools have also weighed in on the matter, saying participation in church related programmes has always been part of school life in such institutions.<\/p>\n<p>By Catherine Pule<\/p>\n<p>Kalemba, April 9, 2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Zambia<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zambia. A LUSAKA based Catholic priest has backed the decision by management at Matero Boys Secondary School, a grant-aided Catholic mission school run by the Society of Mary, to suspend more than 200 pupils who absconded from a scheduled day of prayer last Thursday. The pupils are said to have stayed away from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":82275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[233],"class_list":["post-82276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-zambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pupil Not Catholic Should Enroll Elsewhere Says Priest - Zambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A LUSAKA based Catholic priest has backed the decision by management at Matero Boys Secondary School, a grant-aided Cath ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pupil Not Catholic Should Enroll Elsewhere Says Priest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A LUSAKA based Catholic priest has backed the decision by management at Matero Boys Secondary School, a grant-aided Cath ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-10T01:11:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-10T01:14:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2026\/04\/sm_1775783583.145342.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"487\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Pupil Not Catholic Should Enroll Elsewhere Says Priest\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-10T01:11:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-10T01:14:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest\"},\"wordCount\":221,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2026\/04\/sm_1775783583.145342.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Zambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/pupil-not-catholic-should-enroll-elsewhere-says-priest\",\"name\":\"Pupil Not Catholic Should Enroll Elsewhere Says Priest - 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