Vusumuzi Dube- Communities urged to play an active role
Uzile Mkwananzi, Sunday News Reporter
UMZINGWANE Rural District Council (RDC) continues to improve the education sector by building and improving schools infrastructure and facilities funded through the devolution programme.
The devolution implementation by the Second Republic has been one of the greatest achievements for rural development.
The district has 43 primary and 18 secondary schools that include Government and private ones.
Umzingwane RDC chief executive officer (CEO), Mrs Sthembiso Sibanda told Sunday News that they were currently building three more classroom blocks.
“We are currently constructing classroom blocks at Godlwayo Primary School, Mawabeni Primary School, Mvuthu Primary School and a science laboratory at Nsezi Secondary School using funds from the devolution programme, Constituency Development Fund (CDF), council revenue and community participation,” said Mrs Sibanda.
She said the district allocated two stands to two private players that are going to construct more schools.
“We have allocated a stand to a private player for the construction of a secondary school and a private college in Ward 14, we have also allocated a stand to another private player to construct a primary school in Ward 16.”
Mrs Sibanda said they have a number of construction projects for schools for this year.
“Through the 2024 devolution funds from the Government, we have planned to construct a classroom block at Godlwayo Primary School, a science laboratory at Nsezi Secondary School and a staff house construction at Ntabenende Primary School just to mention a few,” she added.
In as much as the district has been showing great improvement in the education sector, the CEO believes that the district can still achieve more if only communities come together and help in certain areas.
She said communities were not as forth coming when it came to the enactment of projects.
“The reluctance of communities to participate in the implementation of projects reduces the speed at which we can attain success as a district. If only such projects were taken up with vigor, achieving way more for our district would not be much of a challenge,” said the CEO
Mrs Sibanda said there were also inadequate schools in the district which made enrolment measures stiff for most, while most of the schools in the resettlement did not have access to national examination facilities.
“One of our major challenges is that most of our schools in the resettlement are satellite schools meaning that they are not examination centers for the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) this means that learners then have to walk longer distances to sit for the examinations which in turn affects their performance levels as they sometimes arrive late and or tired,” she added.
She said as a district they were still focusing on its improvement, most schools are not yet equipped with facilities to cater for pure science combinations and classes, so most learners had to travel and leave their homes and relocate to places that are equipped to cater for their combinations.
“A few schools in our district are able to provide and cater for pure science combinations as such our learners cannot be enrolled at any science and technology university for professional courses like medicine and engineering among others,” said Mrs Sibanda.
Sidumisile Mabena
Online Reporter