Grade 7 exam failure: Where does the buck stop?

Cont Mhlanga
KANTI amakhansila eGwanda athini ngokufeyila kwabantwana eGlass Block  2, Gobadema, Matshetsheni, Ngoma, Tshongwe leZelezele Datata? They are heaping the blame on Shona-speaking teachers of all the things! Angiwatholi kahle amakhansila ezabelweni.Since the announcement that the above schools failed to register any passes in last year’s Grade 7 examinations, I have been expecting the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in Matabeleland South Cde Abednico Ncube to announce an urgent intervention plan by his office, but it looks like he thinks this is not a provincial matter. Ukhona emsebenzini yini Minister?

I want to share my experiences and opinions with the rural district councillors on this matter, and then show them the office door where they should go to get this matter addressed swiftly. It is not as complicated as they think.

Thousands of Zimbabwean children makhansila ezabelweni live in the Diaspora — ezizweni zakwamanye amazwe and started their education under teachers who do not speak those children’s tribal languages, yet they register passes all the way to universities. This shows us that it does not matter what language the teacher speaks, the child will adjust and come out empowered as long as they have a certain level of learning capacity and the learning environment is supportive.

In this case, blaming it on Shona-speaking teachers is misleading and mischievous. Yekelani ukwesulela izono zaboyihlo ebantwaneni, babengekho. You need to understand makhansila ezabelweni that Matabeleland South over the past 14 years has become a dominantly gold-panning province.

The so-called learned now choose to call it artisanal mining, because some people overseas want to manipulate it to slow down the development of the African continent so that they continue to make money through the continent’s poverty by all means possible.

They want to make it sound nice, cool and respectful. No, let us call it gold panning because it is not nice and cool but deadly to the environment and to human beings as long as those that do it remain untrained.

Today, Matabeleland South finds itself being a valley of massive gold panning and it continues to grow. Gold panners use mercury to extract gold. The unsafe burning of the liquid causes mercury vapour that is very poisonous to humans and the atmosphere.

Mercury liquid is itself not as deadly a poison than mercury vapour if it enters someone’s body. Once mercury enters your body, it piles up causing life-long health effects. However, this is less deadly than mercury that contaminates the environment particularly air, water and soil.

Mercury can travel from a bottle into the soil, then into water and vegetation, then into cattle or fish, then into a human body that eats the meat, vegetables, milk or fish, then into an unborn child.

With the level of mining and cattle ranching in the province, like it or not and do not let anybody fool you, the province is highly contaminated with mercury poisoning. We found it so when we did some research for the production of Amakorokoza and other community theatre plays on gold panning.

Because of the unsafe use of mercury by panners, and lack of training and awareness, those that are involved in gold panning in the province are exposed continuously to extremely high levels of mercury vapour.

The environment in the province is exposed to large quantities of mercury liquid that is not safely kept in the first place, not to mention safe use. A very serious level of mercury poisoning is taking place every second in the province. What I know is that there are no decontamination programmes going on in the province.

This leaves vegetation, crops, livestock and water animals exposed to a poisoned environment. In turn, these transmit the poison to people and highly at risk are children, including those that are not yet born by parents who are already poisoned. You do not have to be a gold panner to be poisoned. The already poisoned environment will get at you one way or another sooner or later.

How does all this connect to the poor pass rate? It’s simple: the child we expect to pass at school is not healthy enough to do so. A sick child can’t win a marathon, even if you ask them to race alone. Health problems caused by mercury depend on how much has entered your body, how it entered your body, how long you have been exposed to it, and how your body responds to it.

The following are symptoms of mercury poisoning: impairment of peripheral vision; disturbances in sensations; numbness — usually in the hands, feet and sometimes around the mouth; lack of coordination of movements such as writing; impairment of speech, hearing, walking; muscle weakness; skin rashes; mood swing, memory loss, and mental disturbances.

High levels of mercury poisoning will damage a growing brain, harming the way unborn and young children will be able to think and learn. It can also harm anyone’s heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system.

I have put in italics and bold the dangers faced by children in Matabeleland South today when it comes to performing well at school. I conclude to say that children in the schools mentioned here have serious challenges in the way they think and learn. It is not about teachers and their tribal languages. It is a problem bigger than that, makhansila ezabelweni.

This is an important instruction about the use of mercury: never heat mercury unless you are a professional chemist who knows what you are doing and are following proper safety procedures. Keep loose mercury away from heat sources, and if it spills on or inside one in a way that you are not certain it can be cleaned up completely, consult a professional to check levels.

I can tell you now that no gold panner follows this instruction. I did not compose this instruction, I lifted it out off a manual that I used when I was writing the TV series Amakorokoza because the objective of the show was to teach the community and gold panners about the health dangers of unsafe use of mercury in extracting gold. Mercury can get on clothes and shoes and be carried around to contaminate a much larger area. This is a matter that needs to be addressed urgently.

To solve the learning challenge that is now faced by children in Matabeleland South, rural schools starting with those that have not recorded any passes or are currently recording the lowest passes need to focus on improving the learning environment of these schools to match the thinking and learning challenges faced by those children because of mercury poisoning.

Brains that have been damaged by mercury poisoning need very special schools equipped well to assist them in learning. The current set-up in these rural schools is not ideal for extracting good passes from these children even if they are taught all their lives by their own brothers and sisters who speak their tribal language. The learning environment is a major challenge given the social background of these children.

This challenge will get worse as government has now been cowed down to legalise gold panning, sadly doing so without putting a solid education programme for both the community and the miners. We have yet to see the worst negative impact of gold panning and mercury poisoning of citizens that the country will regret for the next 100 years. Money cannot buy human life we must always remember!

The learning environment in these schools must be upgraded urgently as we cannot allow for a situation that sacrifices the future of children just because they live in rural areas.

The mining companies were arm twisted by government to put money into Community Trusts and they did. So money should not be a problem in improving these rural schools, unless if it was all election propaganda, those dollar cheques we saw in the media the President handing out to chiefs. Another reason for empty coffers in Community Trust accounts could be theft through high salaries and benefits.

What is therefore lacking is provincial political leadership that should in this case be provided by Cde Minister Abednico Ncube as Provincial Minister. Without sharp provincial leadership, this matter of improving these schools will not go anywhere.

To the district councillors, lina makhansila ezabelweni, if you do not want any teacher in any of your schools for whatever reason, all you need to do is take a resolution and get rid of the particular teacher and send them back to the  Ministry of Education Headquarters.

You are the authority, and it is within your right to exercise that authority. Stop pretending that there is someone from Harare oppressing you when in fact you are oppressing yourselves by inaction on matters that are within your jurisdiction. Yekelani ukwethesa abantwana ngezono zaboyihlo khona kumele lisukume nje libasebenzele impilo zabo ziye phambili.

Let me end by saying that if the results of the schools in discussion do not improve this year, the blame should be taken by the whole provincial population of Matabeleland South to Provincial Minister Abednico Ncube’s door step. He has everything he needs to address the failure rate at these schools. He has no excuse to put forward except his brain capacity.

Ncube is the only person at provincial level who can even directly call and meet with the President any time to present any burning matter from the districts for the attention of the President.

That is how powerful he is in that post and let  us see that power solving the pass rate concerns from these rural schools, regardless of what the challenges are. The councillors should just go and knock on his door and not take excuses in exchange for development.

If the pass rate in these schools does not improve this year just ask the President to fire Minister Abednico Ncube from office and I know if it comes from the people for a good reason such as rural education the President, an educationist himself will do so.