Girls to benefit from more schools

Victor Maphosa
Mashonaland East Bureau
The plan by Government to construct more schools to reduce walking distances for learners to about 5km, is expected to benefit mostly girls as some have been abused in the thick forests they pass through on their way to and from school.

This was said by Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Evelyn Ndlovu during the Global Hand Washing Day and World Toilet Day in Mudzi recently.

The Second Republic has indicated its intention to construct an additional 3 000 schools to ensure the necessary social distancing requirement to minimise the spread of Covid-19 is achieved.

Further, the distance that learners walk to the nearest school, will be considerably reduced.

Presently, some walk for anything between 5km and 20km, which has exposed them to various vagaries such as sexual abuse and muggings, with the net effect of impacting their pass rate.

Said Minister Ndlovu: “Government will build more schools throughout the country. The schools will include boarding schools for low income and high income for both primary and secondary learners. In each district, we must ensure that no learner should walk a distance exceeding 5km. It is a must that the child must walk less than 5 km to school.

“We have seen that learners especially girls from secondary schools always leave school before they finish their studies due to issues like pregnancy; they pass through dense forests when going or coming from school. Therefore, we do not want them to walk for a long distance.

“We want some of them, girls, to be enrolled in boarding schools to avoid this pregnancy issue that disturbs them in school.

“If we prevent these children from getting pregnant when they are young, we then prevent them from being affected by cervical cancer. We do not want our children and our women to die from cervical cancer.” Minister Ndlovu said it was important for children to mature first, before they could have children.

Turning to income generating projects, Minister Ndlovu said schools must be turned into economic hubs and generate money that would be used to fund some of their operations.

“We have a program for each school to be an economic hub. Headmasters, each school must be an economic hub.

“There should be water for fisheries, green gardens, poultry and everything to generate money. This will help to pay fees for those who are under privileged,” she said.

Schools that excel will get awards from the Ministry.