Chronicle Editor
The Government has an obligation to ensure that each and every Zimbabwean child enjoys his or her right to education. The settler regime had deliberately created bottlenecks in the education system to ensure only a few blacks proceeded beyond high school.
The rigorous screening started at primary school level where many pupils failed to proceed to secondary school. The blacks were then subjected to another screening at Form Two, Four and Six resulting in very few pupils proceeding to institutions of higher learning such as colleges and the only university before independence in 1980.
This was a deliberate policy by the colonial Government to deny blacks education so that they continued to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. It was because of the skewed education policy that Government at independence immediately embarked on a programme to build schools in both rural and urban areas while also increasing the number of colleges and universities.
The Government policy is that children in both urban and rural must be within walking distance to the nearest primary or secondary school. The country which had just one university at independence now boasts of eight State universities.
The policy is for each province to have at least a state university and plans are therefore at an advanced stage to establish state universities in the remaining two provinces.
The Government and its development partners have during the past 40 years built a number of primary and secondary schools in rural and urban areas so that pupils are within walking distance of the nearest school.
The focus now should be in resettlement areas where pupils are walking long distances to the nearest school and in some areas pupils are accommodated in makeshift buildings such as farmhouses.
In some areas pupils have established ‘bush boarding facilities’ near the schools to avoid walking long distances. These are pole and dagga shacks to accommodate pupils and there are no basic facilities such as toilets and bathrooms.
The pupils have to improvise thereby risking contracting diseases. It is a free for all at these bush boarding compounds thereby exposing the girls to sexual abuse.
It is in these new resettlement areas that Government should direct more resources to so that pupils are within walking distance of the nearest primary or secondary school. Vice President Kembo Mohadi said on Friday that Government was working on eradicating these bush boarding facilities which he said exposed the girl child to all manner of vices. It has taken too long to address the issue of bush boarding facilities which are prevalent in remote rural areas thereby disadvantaging rural pupils.
There is a need to ensure a conducive learning environment if pupils are to enjoy their right to education. We want to implore Government and its development partners to avail more resources to address the issue of shortage of secondary schools which has seen the mushrooming of these bush boarding compounds.
Online Reporter