Online Reporter
Robin Muchetu, Health and Gender Editor
THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has given an ultimatum to unregistered schools and colleges to register legally with the relevant departments, with a grace period ending December 31, being extended to them, or they face closure.
The grace period for registration is to ensure there are no disturbances to public examinations that begin soon, as immediate closure will negatively impact learners who are preparing for their finals.
The Minister, Torerayi Moyo, said this while addressing Parliament, where legislators raised serious concerns on the mushrooming of unregistered schools and colleges in both rural and urban areas that threaten to challenge the quality of education delivered to learners across the country.
“We have a challenge of a proliferation of illegal schools. Illegal schools that are mushrooming almost every day in our neighbourhood, in the rural areas all over. However, that practice is illegal. It is illegal to establish a school that is not registered. It is mandatory for any school to be registered before it can operate. I have made a clarion call to those directors of illegal schools to regularise their operations or face the penalties that are at our disposal.
“We have given illegal schools a grace period of four months because we did not want to close those schools haphazardly, as this disadvantages the learners because, by doing so, we would have violated their fundamental right, right to education. So, I want to promise this august House that very soon in November or perhaps, we can extend further to January 2026, because we do not want to disturb examinations. Come January 2026, those schools that operate illegally, that would have failed to regularise their operations, will be closed,” he said.
He said the ministry has a department in charge of school registration and has the responsibility to give technical advice to anyone who wants to invest in education.
Minister Moyo said the ministry carried out a study in 2022 and the findings of the study, then, indicated that there was a deficit of 3 000 schools in Zimbabwe and they have started closing in the gaps.
“Now, I can happily inform this House that we have constructed more than 600 schools. From 2022 until now in 2025, we have built more than 600 schools. This year, we are targeting to build no fewer than 200 schools by 2025.
When I say school construction, I am not only just referring to schools that are built by the Government because we are the regulator. I need to clarify this to Hon Members. All schools that are built by the Government, individuals, corporates, or by organisations like the churches are our schools. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints has built seven schools this year,” he said.
He said the Church of Johane Marange is building more than eight schools this year, adding that the Government itself has received funding from NBS and has started constructing 25 schools.
“We also have partners in the form of Opec funding for International Development. They have pledged the first initial funding of 20 million, which we expect to get this month. We also have organisations like the Algerian Government. So, we are seized and busy in constructing schools,” he added.
In terms of monitoring, Minister Moyo said that as the regulator, the Ministry sometimes visits the illegal schools for the purposes of persuading them to regularise their operations.
“We have a case in point of an illegal school that abused the examination funds of students. That is when we descended on the school and discovered that some of the teachers were not even qualified.
Those are the reasons that are forcing us, as the Government, to close the schools because what happens in one’s backyard where the school exists, we do not know. However, our policy is, they need to regularise their operations so that we monitor everything that exists. Sometimes we get tip-offs and that is when we descend.
@NyembeziMu
