Take up insurance, schools told

Business Reporter
SCHOOLS have been urged to prioritise insurance in order to safeguard loss of valuable property to unfortunate incidents such as fire and theft, a senior FBC Bank official has said. FBC Bank’s senior manager for retail banking and e-commerce, Mr Matsvimbo Dida, said that insurance was especially critical at this time when schools were receiving valuable equipment as donations from well-wishers.

He said it was critical to ensure property such as books and computers that were difficult to replace once lost.
“We have read about various schools that have lost a lot of property that they would receive through various ways such as donations and replacing that equipment has been difficult, which makes insurance a necessity for all schools,” he said.

Mr Dida was speaking during the hand-over ceremony of an all-weather tennis court at Hallingbury School last week, where he was the guest of honour. This followed the refurbishment of the old tennis court into an all-weather tennis court at a cost of US$46 000. The money was raised by the Hallingbury Primary School Development Association through contributions from parents.

The refurbishment of the tennis court was in line with the Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture requirements that every school should modernise their sporting facilities.

The district educational officer for the Warren Park-Mabelreign area, Mr Mufudzi Mafukidze — who officially handed over the all-weather tennis court — hailed the school’s commitment to ensuring that the school has up-to-date sporting facilities.

“I would like to thank the school development association, the parents and the corporate world for ensuring that Hallingbury’s staff and pupils enjoy modern sporting facilities,” he said.

Hallingbury’s SDA chairman, Mr Mulandelwa Gumbie, told the gathering that the decision to refurbish the tennis court was taken in 2011.

“We had seen that our school was using an outdated tennis court so we held an annual general meeting in May 2011 when we presented our proposal to upgrade this tennis court and the parents approved it.

“After that, we told the parents that they had to pay US$20 as a once off payment for this project, which they did and today we are happy that we have achieved this goal,” he said.