adminMarvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
COMPUTERS donated by President Mugabe to promote E-learning are still lying idle at some schools in Matabeleland South Province because the institutions do not have computer laboratories. Presenting challenges facing the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in the provision of education during a provincial stakeholders meeting in Gwanda Town last week, the provincial education officer (planning), Mr Rhodes Ndlovu, lamented the lack of computer laboratories at some schools.
“The President donated computers to almost all the secondary schools in the province but some of those computers are not being used because there are no laboratories. The computers are still locked in the strongrooms,” he said.
Mr Ndlovu said the schools should have computer rooms with proper security where computer lessons could be conducted.
He said it was not proper to move the computers from one room to the other.
Mr Ndlovu challenged stakeholders and other responsible authorities to urgently address the issue of computer laboratories so that pupils can start benefiting from President Mugabe’s donations.
“We therefore appeal to the responsible authorities to construct these special computer rooms as pupils from the affected schools are already lagging behind,” he said.
President Mugabe has over the years donated computers worth millions of dollars to schools in both rural and urban areas countrywide under the Presidential Computerisation Programme.
Meanwhile, Mr Ndlovu also highlighted the challenge of dilapidated infrastructure at some of the schools in the province and said there was a need for the schools to be refurbished.
“If you visit some schools, you will never want to go back there because of the poor infrastructure. Let us therefore come up with plans to improve these schools,” he said.
Stakeholders also highlighted the need for the construction of Science laboratories, saying most rural schools in the province do not have them. The provincial education director, Mrs Tumisang Thabela, said some organisations had pledged to support education provision by constructing Science laboratories in some parts of the province.
The province is also facing an acute shortage of qualified Science and Mathematics teachers.
Online Reporter