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Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter
THERE was pomp and fanfare at Townsend High School in Bulawayo yesterday as the institution received the Secretary’s Merit Award, the highest Government accolade given to a school.
The Secretary’s Merit Award is a quality control and supervisory tool that recognises schools of excellency as models that the rest of the schools in the country should emulate.
Townsend High School was established on 1 May 1950 and was named after Townsend Road which was also named after Dr R M Townsend who was a physician as well as a civil commissioner.
The girls only school with boarding facilities has an enrolment of 1 000.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Mrs Tumisang Thabela presented the award and unveiled a plaque at the school. Part of the package also included the Head’s tablet and a certificate of excellence, 40 tablets for pupils, an electronic interactive board and a teacher’s laptop.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mrs Thabela highlighted some of the school’s high spots that saw it emerging as the best high school in the Bulawayo Metropolitan Province.
“The Ministry appreciates and commends the school for its infrastructural development projects that have given a beautiful facelift to the school. Such noticeable outputs include your well designed and constructed perimeter wall, your acquisition of two reliable buses that ferry the girls to and from school and the general maintenance of the school’s buildings.
“The school is also commended for having a functional swimming pool. It has suitable infrastructure where the girls are taught life skills and physical education for wellness and health living,” said Mrs Thabela.
Mrs Thabela said the Ministry also recognised the school’s excellence on the academic side. That, she said, had seen the school winning several other accolades at district and provincial level.
“Townsend High School has been a force to reckon with as evidenced by the accolades that adorn the school’s administration walls. Such impressive achievements have been attained at both the district and provincial merit award levels.
“Sometime in one year, the school broke a national record where out of 168 candidates who had sat for isiNdebele, 104 of them got grade As.It was a pleasant achievement as a number of the candidates used the indigenous language as their second language.
The pass rates produced at the school over a period of five years indicate a significant pass rate although the school needs to put a lot of energy on its Ordinary Level results,” said Mrs Thabela.
The school was also recognised for fully implementing the Competence-Based Curriculum. This has seen pupils being equipped with skills in dressmaking, poultry-rearing, fish farming, basketry, agriculture, sherbet making, crop husbandry and contemporary dancing. Coffee making has also been imparted to the pupils.
The agriculture department supplies the boarding sector with produce and sells to the community as well as serving as a fundraising venture for the school.
The Art Department has connected and shared best practices with the Mzilikazi Art and Craft Centre as well as the Bulawayo Art Gallery.The sporting excellence that Townsend has exhibited has seen the grooming of luminaries like Yvonne “Mtshina” Vanhuvaone who represented Zimbabwe in the All-Africa Games in Nigeria, Botswana and Angola.
Townsend High School headmistress Mrs Millicent Moyo expressed her gratitude and thanked the School Development Committee members for their contribution towards the school’s development.
“I would like to appreciate everyone who has contributed in whatever form towards the clinching of this much coveted merit award. Former SDC members and current ones, this is an encouragement for you to continue blossoming forever. You have set a standard for yourself and you will be expected to live up to it,” said Mrs Moyo.
The colourful ceremony was attended by senior Government officials in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, district schools’ inspectors, headmasters from other schools in the province as well as the ministry’s stakeholders. — @nyeve14
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