Poor infrastructure blamed for poor results

Whinsley Masara Chronicle Reporter
Acting Bubi District Education Officer (DEO) Viginia Sibanda said dilapidated infrastructure at most schools in the district was largely to blame for the poor public exam results. She said in 2010 and 2011, some schools in the district recorded zero percent pass rate in the Grade Seven examinations.

“Some schools don’t have proper classrooms, toilets, furniture and textbooks and this adversely affects the pupils’ performance,” she said.

Sibanda said because of poor teacher accommodation, some schools were failing to attract qualified teachers.

She said the district has 54 primary schools and 30 of these are registered while the other 24 are satellite schools.

Five of the satellite schools, Sibanda said, had pole and dagga classrooms while the remaining 14 were using farm houses as classrooms.

The district has 17 secondary schools and only eight are registered.

“All satellite schools have no accommodation for teachers and as such teachers have to walk long distances to school,” said Sibanda.

She said: “A teacher who walks more than 20 kilometres to school isn’t motivated and as such is not expected to work hard.”

Sibanda said low teacher morale contributed to the poor results being recorded by schools in the district.

Bubi MP, Clifford Sibanda, who is also the Minister of State in the Office of Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, said the constituency has the highest number of satellite schools in the province.

The government has said in the next five years no school should be operating from pole and dagga structures as this compromises the quality of education.