Chronicle Editor
Mkhululi Ncube, [email protected]
THE Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church has commissioned a state-of-the-art Early Childhood Development (ECD) classroom block at Fairview Adventist Primary School in Bulawayo as the Church complements Government efforts to improve the quality of education in line with the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
Under the NDS1, Government is paying particular attention to broadening access and improving quality of education for both urban and rural pupils with the private sector expected to play a key role.
As part of implementing Vision 2030 anchored on the NDS1, the Government has approved the construction of 3 000 new schools by 2025 in response to increase in demand for places at both primary and secondary school.
In Bulawayo, Government has partnered with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints to build new classrooms and science laboratory blocks as well as refurbish classrooms and toilets at Cowdray Park Primary School, Pumula South Secondary, Mncumbatha Secondary School, Mandwandwe High School, Emganwini High School and Maphisa Primary School.
The classroom block at Fairview Adventist Primary School in Parklands suburb, was funded by parents. The facility has four classrooms, a sick bay, a teacher-in-charge office, storerooms, a computer laboratory, a dining hall, a kitchen and ablution facilities.
Speaking during the commissioning of the classroom block yesterday, Bulawayo provincial education director, Mr Bernard Mazambane said Fairview is one of the top four schools in Bulawayo and has attained a 100 percent pass rate at Grade Seven in the last two years.
“The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is moving towards a very important stage in the development of our pupils. We understand from psychology that the first five years for every kid are very crucial, so the ministry has come up with the early learning policy where the thrust is on foundation learning,” he said.
“You will see the system changing because we have to do it right from the early ages of our pupils. Foundational literacies are the thrust of the ministry and the Zimbabwe early learning policy has many pillars with one of them being infrastructural development which we are witnessing here.”
Mr Mazambane commended the SDA church for complementing the Government in the education sector.
“In the past two years, this school had a 100 percent pass rate at Grade Seven and only four other schools in Bulawayo did like Fairview last year. This school is competing among the best and therefore, let us continue to improve the learning environment of our pupils and teachers so that we have very good results,” he said.
SDA education director in the Southern Africa and Indian Ocean Division (SID), Dr Felix Njini said Fairview Adventist Primary is one of their flagship schools, not only in Zimbabwe but the Sadc region.
He said the school is one of the six SDA-run institutions in the entire Sadc region, which have a five-year accreditation status.
“This school is one of our flagship institutions not only here in Zimbabwe but in the entire SID territory. The trademark of attaining a 100 percent pass rate is one of the indicators,” said Dr Njini.
He said the other indicator was that in the whole of SID where the Church has 488 primary and secondary schools, only six schools attained a five-year accreditation status and one of them is Fairview Adventist.
Dr Njini hailed the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education for working closely with the Church when accrediting its schools to make sure they maintain high standards.
The school head, Mr Palmer Siziba commended the various stakeholders for contributing to the
success of the project.
He said they will soon embark on the construction of a new double-story building with eight classrooms.
“From here we are looking forward to constructing a double-story building which will house four classrooms on the ground floor and four on the first floor. The structure will be for Grades 4, 5, 6, and 7 classes. This is in line with our thrust to double stream our classes because previously we had just one class per grade,” said Mr Siziba
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