Six schools built at Matetsi resettlement

WHEN the Government initiated the Land Reform Programme, which led to the establishment of Matetsi Ward in Hwange in 2000, the area had no social amenities such as schools and clinics.

Matetsi Ward 1 is both a wildlife and crop farming area located on the boundary between the Hwange National Park, Sinamatela National Park and Chamabondo National Park in the Hwange Rural District Council.

It covers Breakfast, Matetsi, Masuwe, Lubangwe and Woodlands areas where there are A 1 and A2 farmers.

The ward is shared among three Chiefs, Mvuthu, Shana and Wange who preside over some areas with a total of about 1 360 homesteads and a population of approximately 7 000 people, according to area councillor, Clr Vulindlela Mhlanga, popularly known as Gasela.

Since 2000, six schools – Masuwe Primary, Sikabelo Primary, Matetsi Primary, Breakfast Primary, Nyongolo Primary and Matetsi Secondary School have been built to enhance access to education.

The schools were built using funds generated from proceeds of hunting, HRDC funds and the help of some development partners.

“Since the establishment of Matetsi ward in 2000, six schools have been built using various sources of revenue. As Matetsi ward, we do hunting and we use the proceeds to do different projects while the HRDC also provides building material,” said Clr Mhlanga.

“We have other partners like Buy a Brick Foundation and Jafuta Foundation who have helped us a lot and as we speak we have six schools that have been built and some are still under construction.”

Matetsi Secondary, the only secondary school in the area, operates as an annex of Mashake Secondary School in Jembezi.

In last year’s Ordinary Level examination, a learner from Matetsi was the overall best with seven subjects, four of them As, beating candidates from the mother school.

Clr Mhlanga appealed to authorities to expeditiously give the school an examination centre status to improve the pass rate.

Distance to school has over the years been identified as a key driver for dropouts and low pass rates in many schools in Hwange and Matabeleland North.

Nationally, the Government intends to build more schools in high-density suburbs and resettlement areas where the shortage of learning infrastructure is severe.

The country has a deficit of about 2 800 schools, and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is looking for public-private partnerships to fund the construction of new schools.

“The day I won the elections, I stopped being a politician and became a policy maker. There are a number of projects that we promised people, like building schools and clinics and doing irrigation,” said Clr Mhlanga.

“We will continue with these projects as we have seen the problems we made before and we are correcting them now. We want to first educate our people as that will empower them.”

He was speaking recently at a thank you rally organised by the Zanu-PF party, to thank its supporters for voting wisely in the ward.

The party’s Secretary General, Dr Obert Mpofu addressed the gathering. Meanwhile, Clr Mhlanga said several other projects are being implemented using proceeds from hunting and with help from development partners.

These include drilling of boreholes to reduce the distance to the nearest water source to less than 1km for any household.

A ward clinic is also under construction and at roof level and being plastered in Breakfast while two health posts will be established in Sikabela and Nyongolo areas.

Currently, people from the ward travel to Ndlovu, Jambezi and Victoria Falls for health services.

Clr Mhlanga applauded the Government for development programmes including the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme, which he said has helped in the upgrading of the road network.