Chronicle Editor
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
THE Government has invited individuals with free funds to invest in the education sector in a move aimed at bridging existing capacity and quality gaps within the education system.
Government has said boarding schools in the country were few to accommodate the high demand for placements amid revelations that only 25 000 places were availed in 2024 against 370 000 learners that qualify for being enrolled in boarding schools.
The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has made a call for individuals and education partners who are willing to come on board and assist in constructing schools in Bulawayo, Matabeleland South, and Mashonaland East which will aid in reducing the number of schools needed in the country which stands at 2 800.
“We have a shortage of schools in Zimbabwe to the tune of 2 800. We want partners to come on board, individuals to come on board, if you have resources, why don’t you target a boarding school? I was looking at statistical data, last year, those who wrote Grade Seven examinations were 275 000. Boarding facilities available were 25 000. So it means if every pupil had passed, all 275 000 of them, it means 250 000 learners were not going to get boarding vacancies to do Form One. It shows there is a gap, why don’t you construct schools? We are calling upon individuals to build their own schools and privatise those schools,” said the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Cde Torerai Moyo in an interview.
He was, however, quick to say only new schools were to be privatised, not existing ones.
“What we do not want is a mission school to start thinking of privatising. I will not mention those churches that have a habit of privatising their institutions. If they want to privatise their schools why don’t they build new schools and charge what they want, they can do that,” he said.
The Minister said schools needed to diversify their operations and be profitable.
“Cabinet has authorised schools and institutions to run commercial ventures to realise a profit from their sales and to contribute to the food security pillar for home grown school feeding programmes. We want our schools to venture into business, education must be seen as a business.
“A boarding school can perhaps keep up to 200 broilers or road runners and supply chickens to learners. You can have a nutritional garden where you can produce tomatoes or anything you can supply to the kitchen and you can fund the school feeding programme from the nutritional gardens, that is what we expect you to do,” said Cde Moyo.
He added that nutritional gardens could financially or economically unlock value for the local communities as locals could purchase produce from the schools and they realise a lot of profit. The Minister has been on a nationwide tour of various schools and meeting with authorities to assess if circulars sent to them were being actioned and respected.
The Minister said in his tours he visited a school in Chinhoyi where the school purchased a bus with 50 percent of the funding coming from school projects, emphasising their importance.
He further mentioned that there were satellite schools that were not yet registered but were operating with learners walking long distances to write examinations at other schools. He said the Government was going to disburse US$5 000 to those schools that were at least 80 percent complete to enable them to complete construction. – @NyembeziMu
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu