‘Deal with parents not pupils over fees’

Speaking during the annual Better Schools Programme of Zimbabwe (BSPZ) for Bulawayo Province at the Large City Hall on Friday, Mr Moyo said sending pupils home affected the quality of results and denied pupils their right to education.

“I would like to encourage headmasters and teachers to deal with the parents on issues of school fees and let children learn.

“If we send these children home for failure to pay fees, we affect the quality of results that the pupils will produce eventually. In fact doing so is denying children their right to education. Let’s deal with the parents. Let children learn and let’s make our schools child friendly,” he said.

Mr Moyo said now that most pupils now have the required textbooks, schools should allow them to take the books home during school holidays so that they could continue learning.

“I note that our pupil to textbook ratio now stands at 1:1 we therefore need to improve our pass rate so that our results improve yearly. Teachers are urged to let pupils take the textbooks home during school holidays and the pupils on their part should look after these textbooks,” said Mr Moyo.

He said while the teaching staff was not supposed to send pupils back home for non-payment of fees, parents should meet their obligation of paying for their children’s education. BSPZ has been running for nine years under the motto “striving for effective supervision, monitoring and evaluation for quality education”.

The programme rewards schools and pupils whose performance in academic, sporting and cultural activities is outstanding.