Affected learners due to floods to receive extra lessons: Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education

Mthabisi Tshuma, Zimpapers Writer

THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has announced that it will compensate learners who are failing to attend school due to flooded rivers and streams by offering them extra lessons to catch up on their schoolwork.

A number of schools countrywide, mainly in rural areas, have issued statements to parents informing them that learners who are required to cross streams or rivers should not risk their lives by going to school, but should stay at home.

Speaking to Zimpapers, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Director of Communication and Advocacy, Mr Zumbo Patrick, said no learner would be affected by missing school due to the rains.

“In the event of rains, we have some (learners) that are affected by floods and they’ve lost the precious learning time. We always take measures to ensure that they are compensated as extra lessons are actually created for them so that they cover up their syllabuses.

“Nobody is going to be disadvantaged, even during the rainy season we are very much aware that with very limited learning time, that learning time has to be utilised,” he said.

Mr Zumbo said schools have in the past been trained on how to handle disasters.

“As a Ministry we don’t want to lose any lives during this season and in such we’ve taken the necessary precautional measures and one of the measures that we have taken is to make sure that all our heads, and our SDC’s we have taken them on board in as far as disaster management is concerned where we have workshoped the number of these people on how they can manage disasters.

“To that effect, we also have what we call a disaster risk manual, which is currently used in our schools and it would always encourage our personnel to make reference to it so that they get to know how they can manage such disasters. Over and above we’ve always embraced upon them that they our learners, our teachers should not make an attempt to cross flooded rivers so that we save lives. So those are some of the measures that we have taken,” said Mr Zumbo.

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