Dominican Convent pupils shine at World Robot Olympiad Zimbabwe stage

Mashudu Mambo

DOMINICAN Convent Primary School in Bulawayo hosted an award ceremony on Thursday to honour three pupils who won at the World Robot Olympiad Zimbabwe competition last month.

The three pupils, Tambirayi Mandebvu, Felicia Marwa and Tinotenda Tsigo won the juniors category.

In an interview, World Robot Olympiad Zimbabwe National Coordinator Ms Victoria Nxumalo expressed excitement over the engagement of young people in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

“We had an award ceremony in celebration of our winners in the just ended World Robot Olympiad Zimbabwe competitions where these amazing young girls came in first place and fourth overall. We are excited to see how they will perform in 2025. In our junior category, we had pupils between the ages of 10 to 12 participating in this competition. Dominican Convent Primary School in Bulawayo came first, followed by Masiyephambili Junior School in Bulawayo and Helen Mcghie Primary School in Masvingo was third,” said Nxumalo.

Nxumalo said they hope to reach out to different provinces in the country.

“We are excited about the uptake of STEM by girls as well as the young people in Zimbabwe and we are looking forward to 2025. Our hope is that we will have a number of teams and reach out to all the provinces in the country. Zimbabwe is not lagging behind in terms of information and communication technology and these programmes such as the Word Robot Olympiads are in line with education 5.0 and STEM policies. These policies are aimed at encouraging young people to use technology to deal with different challenges faced by the community,” said Nxumalo.

Nxumalo applauded different partners who have ensured that the competition became a success.

“We would like to thank our partners, the World Robot Olympiad, Irish Aid, United Nations Commission of Africa, National University of Science and Technology (Nust), Econet Wireless, Telco and Educate Private limited for walking this journey with us. We appreciate the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education for allowing us to work with the schools in the country and we appreciate the support of the Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services,” she said.