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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
ASPIRING Zanu-PF Member of Parliament for Beitbridge West Cde Ruth Mavhungu Maboyi (61) has pledged to address the challenges faced by the rural girl child in terms of access to education and eradication of poverty.
Cde Maboyi, wife to the former Zimbabwean Ambassador to Egypt, Dr Aaron Maboyi-Ncube, said once elected as MP in the harmonised elections, her top priority would be to ensure that young girls in her largely rural constituency go to school.
“The future of our children should be invested in education. You will find that in my constituency, which is largely rural, a number of girls are either school drop-outs or not going to school at all, and in some instances they end up getting married at a tender age. These are some of the challenges that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Our schools don’t have laboratories and most of our children perform badly in science subjects,” she said.
Cde Maboyi said her vision was also to ensure the promotion of the local Tshivenda and Sesotho languages.
“Our local languages such as Tshivenda and Sesotho are not being taught in a manner that we want. These languages should be taught in local schools so that we preserve our rich culture. It is possible to teach Mathematics in Tshivenda and so these are some of the issues that we need to look into as a way of developing our people,” she said.
“I am glad that Great Zimbabwe University is already offering Tshivenda programmes, but we need to start from the bottom.
The language should be taught from primary right up to secondary level.”
Cde Maboyi said most of the roads linking Beitbridge Town and her constituency are in a bad state and need to be rehabilitated.
“In the event that Zanu-PF retains the seat we will certainly continue to spearhead development in the constituency and what guides us are the Zanu-PF policies.
“There is a need to equip our schools, which do not offer STEM subjects. I am therefore going to implement party programmes in the new dispensation led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa,” she said.
Cde Maboyi, an ex-combatant, said her election as Zanu-PF candidate in the harmonised elections, is a calling to serve people and contribute towards the development of Beitbridge District.
She said in the event that she gets the mandate from the electorate to represent Zanu-PF as Beitbridge West MP, she will thrive to ensure that “people come first” in line with the ruling party’s principles.
Cde Maboyi also highlighted the need to complete the electrification of rural schools and clinics.
Born on September 25 in 1957 in Beitbridge District, Cde Maboyi did her primary and secondary school education at Tongwe Primary and Zezani High School. She, however, later dropped out of school in 1977 to join the liberation struggle in Zambia under the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) where she survived the Mkushi bombing incident by the Rhodesian Army in October 1978. Mkushi was a Zipra camp in Zambia where female combatants were trained during the liberation war.
Soon after independence in 1981, Cde Maboyi joined the Zimbabwe National Army during which she continued with her studies through correspondence. She left the army in 1988 and joined the Ministry of Education as a teacher. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Education degree from the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU), a Masters in Public Administration from Cairo University and a Masters in Public Relations and Diplomacy from Washington International University. She is pursuing a doctorate degree with the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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