Mid-season drought scuppers Govt plans

Obert Chifamba Manicaland Bureau
The mid-season drought, which affected most parts of the country during the December-January period, scuppered some of Government’s 100-day plans in Manicaland, particularly in the education sector.

In an interview in Mutare yesterday, the provincial education deputy director, Mr Phillimon Musakanya, said the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education had planned to improve the supply side of agricultural technical skills development.

“We intended to improve schools’ involvement, participation and production levels in plantations, maize farming and small livestock rearing,” he said.

“We assisted schools in establishing maize plots, fruit plantations and start goat, road-runner and bee-keeping  projects.

“Schools such as Chancellor in Mutare, John Cowie in Rusape, Mavhudzi Secondary, Nyazura and Mutungagore were some of the   beneficiaries.

“Our efforts were grossly compromised by the dry spell that hit the country between December and January.”

Projects targeting crop production were also negatively affected.

The ministry, he said, continued to work with teachers, parents and a fertiliser companies to equip children with technical skills.

Part of the 100-day plans also included improving the supervision of schools in the province.

“Under supervision, we expected each schools’ inspector to supervise 15 schools per month in a district, which allowed every school to be visited at least 30 times per term,” said Mr Musakanya.

“We also expected our audit of schools to be enhanced during the 100-day  period.

“As a province, we expected at least 20 schools to receive auditors per term, but this was not possible because the audit team is wrapping up business in Masvingo and will only be in Manicaland after   that.”

Mr Musakanya said the ministry was seized with properly registering schools.

“We were also targeting to have more non-formal schools — at least 20 in the province, but this has not happened because we only have three at the moment,” he  said.

“I think we can rate our success at 60 percent.”