Long walk to education

defiantly noble and astute.
Huge openings that yawn like the mouth of tired fool provide the much-needed ventilation for the ever-hot Binga communal lands.
Uncharacteristically small doors, supported by two or more poles complete the picture from outside.
Inside, bricks and stones dot and scatter on the sandy floor depicting a story of some children playing mock house, yet no, their story is different. The bricks are furniture!
Only a small chalkboard on the wall confirms that this is a classroom.
One by one, children whose feet are cracked from walking long distances without shoes, turn up for lessons. Some of them having awakened as early as 4am to make the 15km journey to school.
One characteristic of these children is that they are actually older than their grades. Most of them start Grade One at the age of nine, so that they can last the distance to and from school.
Living in remote Binga, Shalujani Mudenda (9) walks for 17km to Nduminchenga Primary School near Kamativi. 
Driven by the modern rhythm of life to get educated and open the vast windows of opportunity that can take one to any place in the world, Shanjulani and many children in Binga defy the hard conditions every school day.
Hunger and poverty coupled with poor education facilities are certainly a stumbling block for school-going-age children in Binga and Hwange districts in Matabeleland North. 
The under-clothed, under-fed and under-resourced children have a daunting task when compared to their counterparts in better schools, elsewhere.
To imagine one passing in these areas and go as far as university, without leaving these places for the better, is actually to expect too much, if not a miracle.
For the rest of the children, education ends with the ability to read and write. Period!
In an effort to curb the problem of the long distances a Government established an array of satellite schools in Binga and Hwange districts, as it has done in other remote areas.
Nduminchenga Primary School is one of the satellite schools which is an annex of St Theresa’s in Kamativi under the Hwange Rural District Council.
Hwange District Education Officer Mr Lovemore Ncube concedes that the satellite schools were established to reduce the long distances and that in most cases, they are poorly structured.
“Nduminchenga Primary School is one of the satellite schools which has been established to cater for the children who live on the verges of Hwange and Binga,’’ he said.
“The school was established in January and has three trained teachers who also stay in mud-and-pole thatched huts. There is an enrolment of 150 pupils.
“It serves children from as far as 17km or beyond. Before the school was established the nearest school St Theresa’s in Binga, was about 30km, making it impossible for children to go to school,’’ he said.
Matabeleland North has been recording the highest number of school dropouts in the rural areas which is mainly influenced by a number of factors including the proximity of schools and poverty. Each term there is a considerable number of dropouts.
Education authorities in Binga and Hwange say many children have abandoned school as a result of hunger and long distances.
Lack of food has adversely affected the life of many primary school children in this district regarded as one of the most impoverished in the country.
“Only 50 percent of primary school going children in the villages go to school.
“Those too attend the school according to their will,” said a primary school teacher.
Although there are several primary schools in Binga, in the Siabuwa area more than half of children in the villages are without education.
“One of the reasons why there is such high dropout rate is the hunger and starvation the children face in these districts, thus forcing the parents to cut back on food and pull children out of school,” said a village health worker in Siabuwa in Binga.
Villagers say the situation has gone out of hand and are calling for Government intervention and humanitarian aid.
Although there are a number of satellite schools established in these districts to improve the education system, the Government still needs to intervene in improving the facilities and education systems in the district.
“We really appreciate the satellite schools but the structures of the schools are not conducive for learning and, worse still, for the young children.
“The structures can collapse any day. I think this is the appropriate time Government and NGOs should intervene,” said a  health worker based in Binga.
“We recently witnessed a situation where Mabobolo Primary School walls collapsed on the children during lessons,’’ said Mrs Nokuthula Moyo, a community health worker.
There are more than 15 satellite schools in rural Hwange. Binga is one of the districts with the highest number of satellite schools in Matabeleland North.
The Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture is yet to establish  five more satellite schools in rural Hwange in order to improve the  education system.
In this schools teachers and pupils use the mud-and–pole pit toilets and mud-and-pole accommodation.
In modern-day Zimbabwe, education is a right for every child but enjoying the right is at times a sacrifice for many children in remote areas.
Rutendorwashe Mapfumo is a journalist based in Hwange. She can be contacted on [email protected]