Prof Moyo sources fees for pupils from 11 schools

Nqobile Tshili Chronicle Correspondent
Tsholotsho North MP Professor Jonathan Moyo has sourced more than $10 000 to pay examination fees for Form Four pupils from 11 schools in the constituency. The pupils were in danger of failing to write the tests as their parents had failed to pay their November Ordinary Level examination fees. Prof Moyo who is also the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development met some of the pupils on Thursday at Tsholotsho High School where they are camped to be taught mathematics and science subjects in preparation for the November examinations.

The camp is meant to assist them so that they can do better in the subjects to qualify for the government’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics programme. Parents of the affected pupils had allegedly failed to raise $15 per subject needed to register with the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec).

On Thursday, Prof Moyo also donated scientific calculators, green book revision text books, mathematics sets for over 400 Form Four pupils sitting for November examinations. He said school authorities from all the schools in the constituency told his team that pupils were not registered for national examinations due to their parents’ failure to pay the examination registration fees.

“They were not taking these subjects because they could not afford the $15 required to register for each subject. So since they’re not going to take the subject we’re only concentrating on those who had registered for the examinations. This was shocking,” he said.

Prof Moyo said failure to pay examination fees would have marked the end of the pupils’ education journey.

“We’ve a generation of young scholars that has not completed ‘O’ Level and they become a lost generation. Heaven knows where they end up – some as we know cross the borders to Botswana and South Africa. That means they go for menial labour. Others just disappear into the community here and that was a sad story,” he said.

“We then decided that we should appeal to the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education so that he intervenes. We raised some resources to pay for them. What we thought was a science and mathematics problem became a core subject problem. We wanted them to register for the examinations that are due in November.” — @nqotshili