$36 million released for schools sanitary wear

Blessings Chidakwa Herald Correspondent
Government has released $36 million for sanitary wear for pupils in primary and secondary schools from Grade 4 and above, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Ambassador Cain Mathema has said.

In an interview yesterday, Minister Mathema said money for the sanitary wear has since been released to schools. He said this during a tour of Glen View 5 Primary School and Kwayedza Secondary School in Highfield.

“We have just released $36 million for sanitary wear in our schools. That money has been released, that is the first tranche. The sanitary wear that we are going to be using now is imported and schools should actually be the centres of research and be entrepreneurship,” he said.

Next week, Minister Mathema is set to visit schools in Buhera as part of the monitoring exercise to see what is happening in schools.

The plan is to encourage schools to venture into commercial activities and raise funds for some of their operations. Schools have been instructed to disclose the area of land they own, which could be used for commercial purposes. It is felt that some schools have a lot of land that is not being commercially used. However, Government wants all land to be optimally used to ensure food security.

Said Minister Mathema: “l am not only talking about the rural schools, but urban as well. This is an urban school (Glen View 5), but look at the bananas they have. The school is a centre for economic development. It cannot develop alone because our children must learn like lion cubs learn. Immediately a cub is born, it is trained how to hide and hunt, this is what we should do to with our children for quality education.”

He said if crops were produced on a commercial basis, schools will engage in developmental activities such as construction of classroom blocks, laboratories and assembly halls.

Minister Mathema said if schools combined resources, generated from their commercial ventures, and set up a factory that produces sanitary wear, they would generate more money since they already have a market, over and above the rest of the potential customers outside the school system.