Gwanda RDC rewards high performing schools, teachers

Marvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
THE Gwanda Rural District Council has bought furniture and textbooks worth more than $15 000 for schools to help enhance education of rural pupils in the district.
The RDC awarded furniture worth $8 323 to two primary and two secondary schools that produced the best results in the 2013 and 2014 public examinations. For 2013, Vela Primary and Nkashe High came out tops in the district while Nsimbi Primary and Nhwali High were the best performing schools in 2014.

Vela Primary School had a pass rate of 63,64 percent, Nkashe High School had 18,87 percent at Ordinary Level, while Nsimbi Primary and Nhwali High each produced a 73,91 percent pass rate.

RDC chief executive officer Mr Ronnie Sibanda said the schools were awarded with furniture that included executive chairs, desks and teachers’ chairs.

“We also gave the teachers that produced best results in these schools some monetary token of appreciation as an incentive,” he said.

The teachers, Progress Makhurane (Vela), Simiso Ncube (Nkashe), Susan Dube (Nsimbi) and Mbusi Ndlovu (Nhwali) were each awarded $100 in cash. Some rural schools still face a shortage of furniture, a problem that in turn affects their learning.

Mr Sibanda said the RDC also purchased textbooks for schools that faced a shortage to help improve on their pass rates.

He said some of the schools had indicated that they performed dismally in the public examinations because they lacked textbooks.

“We are trying to complement efforts by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to provide textbooks to learners because in some of these schools, the textbook-pupil ratio was very high,” Mr Sibanda said.

The noble gesture by the RDC is expected to help schools produce better results in examinations.
The textbooks given to the schools were for different subjects, depending on the textbooks needs identified by the schools.

Dwala Primary which recorded a zero percent pass rate in the 2013 Grade Seven examinations was among the beneficiaries.

Other schools that benefited were Mawane, Mawaza and Matanangombe.