Schools urged to develop writing skills among pupils

Plumtree Correspondent
SCHOOLS have been urged to develop good writing skills among pupils in order to produce employable and relevant students.
Speaking during the Matabeleland South province POTRAZ young people’s letter writing prize giving ceremony held at Alan Red Fern Primary in Plumtree recently, the provincial education director, Mrs Tumisang Thabela, said informal styles of writing were creeping into schools.

“We are now living at a time where an informal way of writing has now become common because of the advent of ICTs. Now people have created a simpler way of writing to one another through cell phones and computers. Words have been changed into short cuts.

“For example the Ndebele word sisi is now being written as cc. The problem that we now have as a Ministry is that pupils are now using these styles of writing even in their school work. This is alarming because this informal style of writing is not relevant in the corporate world,” she said.

Mrs Thabela said teachers had to ensure that pupils stuck to the formal way of writing across all languages.

“This problem is there across all languages. It is up to teachers to ensure that school children appreciate the formal way of writing at all times especially at primary level as that is the foundation. There is also a need to come up writing clubs in various languages.

“It is unfortunate that at the moment that it is only the English writing clubs which are being emphasised but these clubs are needed across all languages so that pupils develop a deeper knowledge of the languages they are learning at school,” said Mrs Thabela.

She said letter writing was no longer popular in society but it remained an art and an essential part of culture.

Three pupils from Alan Red Fern Primary, Precious Sibanda, Nicole Sibanda and Comfort Dube all aged 12 years occupied the top three places at this year’s provincial young people’s letter writing competitions.

Also speaking at the ceremony Potraz Director of Postal and Courier Services Mr Kennedy Dewera said the letter writing competitions were held every year to ensure schools produced literate pupils.

“As Potraz we partnered with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education by sponsoring these competitions to ensure that schools produce sharp pupils.

“Our organisation specialises in postal and telecommunications sectors and we realised that these sectors need literate people. All the sectors in our country employ literate people and we decided to take up the challenge of ensuring that literate pupils are produced by schools,” said Mr Dewera.

He said the competitions were being held under the Universal Postal Union which is a United Nations postal activities specialised agency.

He said the competitions started in 1971 and in the country they were being sponsored by Potraz. Mr Dewera said each year the organisation selected topics relevant to the society for young people to write about.

This year’s competition required pupils to write a letter explaining the impact of music in people’s lives.

Speaking on the theme the school’s headmaster, Mr Dumisani Ncube, said music was a language on its own and emphasised on the need for pupils to know that.

Each winning child was issued with prize money, a stationery hamper and a certificate. The school received three shields, a certificate and library books worth $600.

Precious who came first will represent the province at the national competitions. She received $300 in cash and a stationery hamper worth $50.