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Fungai Lupande Mash Central Bureau
A primary school in Concession, Mashonaland Central Province, has received the 2020 Secretary’s Merit Award in recognition of its foresight in starting online lessons, well before Covid-19 broke out in 2020.
Amandas Junior School also started horticulture, poultry, apiculture and maize farming before the pandemic.
The innovative list became useful in generating income for salaries, utility bills and data for online teaching.
The Secretary’s Merit Award is the highest accolade in the Primary and Secondary Education sector.
For Amandas Junior, the award recognised the school’s resilience during the pandemic, as it was not caught unaware by the time schools were required to close to minimise the spread of Covid-19.
Due to the earlier rollout of e-learning, the school had no loss of learning time, no school dropouts and maintained its 98 percent pass rate.
Guest of honour at the handover event for the award, Permanent Secretary for Primary and Secondary Education, Mrs Tumisang Thabela, said the 2020 Secretary’s Merit Award focused on schools that were resilient throughout the pandemic and did not allow their operations to stop when schools were shut down and lessons curtailed.
“The award ensures that schools continue to offer education in an exceptionally high quality manner,” she said.
“Amandas Junior School is one of the few schools that responded to Government’s call to adopt a resilience mode of operation that allowed a return to face-to-face education.
“When schools opened after Covid-19, Amandas and other schools embarked on mask production for the benefit of the school and community. We commend the school for joining the Government in the fight against Covid-19.”
Through other commercial activities, the school widened its revenue base and was able to pay its utility bills and salaries at the same time as saving the lives of learners.
Mrs Thabela said the Government now has correspondent primary schools, which previously were meant to look after children of white farmers before Independence, but were now converted into national centres for open and distant learning after the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said print, online, radio, television and the internet will be used to reach out to learners from homes, schools and communities.
Amandas Junior School embraced the use of technology as a teaching and learning tool in line with the Government’s e-governance drive, said Mrs Thabela.
The school’s infrastructure development was solid as massive renovations were also done during the pandemic period.
“The school has a functional swimming pool, revamped two resource units for learners with hearing and visual impairments.
“There is tangible evidence of hard work, commitment and dedication. I was impressed by the several projects being implemented here, which are not merely production units, but also learning spaces to marry theory with practice. This is the competence-based curriculum’ it wants us to move away from the yesteryear education (of theory) to skills-based education,” said Mrs Thabela.
Parents and children were advised to take pride in who they are, before learning other people’s culture.
Mrs Thabela advised parents to promote the use of indigenous languages, adding one cannot teach Zimbabwean culture using English.
“Let us not be ashamed of who we are. English for the early child development stages is a tool for Grade 3, afterwards they develop and think in their mother tongue,” she said.
“Children, by the end of Grade 2, must be able to read and be numerate. The Zimbabwe Early Learning Assessment 2021-2022 indicated that 25 percent of learners proceed to Grade 3 without the literacy that is necessary.
“Let us push to eliminate non-reading. A building is as strong as its foundation; so are our children whose education is as strong as the years of primary school.
“We are happy that Cabinet has adopted the Zimbabwe Early Learning Policy and for the next five years, the ministry will be pushing,” said Mrs Thabela.
Formerly a Group A school for white farmers built in the 1950s with only 250 learners, Amandas Junior School now has 950 learners across the country.
Each of the 22 classrooms has a laptop and projector and the textbook ratio is 1:1.
School head Mr Thorpe Nyamukuvhengu said they were aiming for a 100 percent pass rate from the consecutive years of 98 percent.
“We are in the process of harvesting honey and maize. We sell our produce as well as feed our boarding learners. This year we are expanding our projects to piggery and a bio-gas digester to cut out electricity bills.”
As part of the award, the school received 40 tablets for learners, a projector, electronic interactive board, 100 chickens and two pigs.
Alderman Shereni Mazhambe from Mvurwi Town Council commended the school for coming up with a number of initiatives to cushion learners during emergencies.
Chief Chiweshe, who is a former headmaster, said the teacher-parent relationship is critical for the development of schools. He reiterated the need for parents to teach children indigenous languages and culture, before appealing to the Government to introduce traditional sporting activities in schools.
Online Reporter