The Sunday News
Andile Tshuma, Sunday News Reporter
THE Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango, said the Ministry was working to demystify myths about rural schools through rewarding top achieving pupils countrywide.
The Primary and Secondary Education Ministry honoured excelling Advanced Level pupils by hosting a recognition ceremony in Harare on Thursday where the top performing were selected from the country’s 10 provinces and hosted together with their school heads and parents at the esteemed function meant to honour pupils who excelled in the Zimsec 2017 Advanced November public examinations.
Dr Utete Masango told Sunday News that it was important to fight stereotypes that perceive rural schools as inferior to urban and boarding schools.
She said such awards proved that all children were academically gifted despite geographical locations of schools as pupils from rural schools were also part of the ceremony.
“There are so many misconceptions about rural schools and those are the things that we are dealing with. Imagine if a school in rural Gutu can have a pupil scoring 30 points from the few humble resources available, then this means that there are a lot of myths that we are yet to demystify. Such events are helping us as a ministry to show that all children are equal regardless of background,” said Dr Utete-Masango.
She stressed the importance of recognising excellence and said they had engaged captains of industry to the event so that they interact with the pupils.
“Look at how seriously South Africans takes their Matric. It is not a ministry issue but becomes a national issue when results are released and best performing students are acknowledged. We are taking a leaf from them and this second edition of our ceremony is bigger and better than last year’s,” she said.
Of note at the awards ceremony were top performing Science pupils, with Mpopoma High School having the best performing pupil in the southern region, scoring 23 points, followed by Cyrene High School in Matobo District with a wonder pupil who scooped 20 points in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
In Matabeleland South, Embakwe High School in Mangwe District had its whizkid scooping 17 points in the public examinations.
Acting Matabeleland South provincial education director Mr Lifias Masukume said he was delighted about the performance of the pupils.
Speaking in a telephone interview from Harare where the dinner was held, Mr Masukume said: “We are very happy that our top performing pupils are being acknowledged and we hope that this steers passion for excellence amongst other students and inspires them to work just as hard for them to be also honoured in such a manner.”
Acting Bulawayo provincial education director Mrs Olicah Khaira was not reachable for comment when contacted.
Other top performing schools in the country were Dewure High in Gutu District of Masvingo Province, St Faith and Gutu High with pupils scoring 30, 28 and 25 points respectively. @andile_tshuma
