Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
A GOVERNMENT report to the effect that more than 10 000 children are not going to school for lack of money to pay school fees among other challenges prompts, in the humble opinion of this discourse, a need for a microscopic relook at the various causative facts to discover if parents and guardians of the children affected do realise that they are in effect preempting brave new futures for present and future generations in our beloved motherland.
Earlier this week the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Torerai Moyo, said at a clean-up and public consultation meeting in Kwekwe that causes of children not going school to included stigma, disability, poverty and neglect by parents — challenges that should come under a national spotlight since education is a critical empowerment tool for national development economically, socially and politically for any nation to maintain peace and stability at all times.
It is all very well and highly commendable for our Government to throw the BEAM rope for the rescue of those children who deserve that assistance because of the genuine inability by their parents to provide school fees for the education and acquisition of skills for future national development by the children in point.
However, stigma and neglect both of which stand in the way of children acquiring education and developmental skills must be seriously tackled by Members of Parliament representing various constituencies which must never ever lag behind other parts of the country on account of the fact that either parents or traditional leaders in the constituencies contribute to children’s inability to further their education and in the process acquire developmental skills that the nation badly needs for continued peace and stability for both present and future generations.
It is not an untruth that some parents, because of their inferior upbringing themselves or because of some weird traditional belief, think that if you educate a girl child you will enrich a family to which she gets married and so “let her go raw to her husband and family”, or so they believe.
Were successful research possible in this area it might expose frightening numbers of parents who deprive their daughters of high education and skills development for fear of enriching families to which their daughters get married.
In this regard MPs should consider working closely with traditional leaders in their constituencies to ensure that no child is deprived of education and skills acquisition to fulfil constituency and national developmental trajectories and in the process woo international investors to fill in gaps in various developmental needs in our country.
For the good of our nation as a whole, it might even become necessary or imperative for MPs and traditional leaders to demand from parents whose children do not attend school what challenges are being faced so these may be dealt with to give our nation as a whole a greater pace in economic and social development.
Traditional leaders and MPs who do not only campaign for loyalty during a chief’s tenure or for political support for MPs at elections are the types of leaders that Zimbabwe and the global village as a whole need for development, peace and tranquillity at all times.
Online Reporter