Obey Musiwa recently in CHEGUTU
OVER 200 pupils at Chegutu Adventist High School committed themselves to Christian service in medicine, welfare and prison ministry during the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Prisons and Hospital Outreach Reintegration Association (PHORA) programme.
The church indicated the school’s teaching of the hand, heart and head together, which they argue mirrors the Government’s Heritage-Based Curriculum 5.0.
The programme was led by Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) PHORA department director Dr Desire Sibanda, former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education. The school sits next to the church’s planned Great Heights University, where pupils will be trained this way to create jobs rather than seek them, and will help reintegrate prisoners and support the sick.
Dr Desire Sibanda said Adventist education prepares pupils for service in this world and the next, and that it supports the Government’s Heritage 5.0 philosophy.
He said pupils must go beyond qualifications.
“Besides students acquiring degrees, diplomas and the like, they have to receive Christ during their school days.”
He said prison and hospital ministry are part of the training, so graduates can help society:
“The students will be taught to be sympathetic and to provide the necessary skills to prisoners so that when they are released they play a very important role in society.”
Dr Sibanda said the church will take the same message of Adventist education, health ministry and prison ministry to Nyazura, where it will meet civil society, educationalists and chiefs.
Chegutu Adventist High School headmaster Mr Sylvester Zhou said the school welcomes Heritage 5.0 because it matches Adventist education’s focus on the heart, hands and head.
He traced the idea to the biblical schools of the prophets.
“They should be employment creators rather than employment seekers,” he said.
He urged parents and other schools to take up the curriculum: “We are in full support of this heritage-based curriculum.”
School chaplain Mr Matthew Changa, appointed by the North Zimbabwe Conference, said the “three Hs” of heart, head and hand give pupils character, knowledge and practical skills.
He said the “hand” component is where the school meets Education 5.0, through farming with a planter and tractor, computer science and graphic design.
“We are turning agriculture from not just being a classroom thing, but into the manual thing.”
He said pupils also learn artificial intelligence, producing the school’s flyers and graphics.
“They are taught how to use AI professionally, and also for their own benefit.”
Student president Mr Ruzivo Chanakira said the sermon challenged pupils to build character and live with direction. She told fellow pupils:
“Be a generation with a purpose. Be a generation that is always helping others,” he said.
