The Sunday News
Rumbidzai Mbewe, Sunday News Correspondent
Clad in an off-white t-shirt, tattered black shorts revealing his chapped un-moisturised legs and old sneakers, Sindiso carries his bucket to the mining area where he loads sand that is being dug by artisanal miners at Mahetshe in Maphisa, Matabeleland South province.
Sindiso is 12 years old, a school dropout and now works as a sand scooper for artisanal miners. For every bucket of sand that he scoops out, he makes R10. All he can think of is making money and works hard throughout the day to carry as many buckets as he can to make money to take home. With schools having been closed for the better part of the year due to Covid-19, his focus has been on making money and since he started this business going back to school is the last thing on his mind.
At home, there are two more children who are also at primary school, and they are contemplating joining Sindiso and they tell him that even if schools were to open at full capacity, they do not want to go back because they have to walk long distances to reach the school and they will be too tired to concentrate.
Maphisa is one of the areas in Matabeleland South that have shortages of primary schools and children walk as far as Kezi for education. Speaking during a meeting organised by Maphisa Peace Champions under Zimbabwe Christian Alliance, the deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Honourable Edgar Moyo confirmed that there were few primary schools at Maphisa but efforts were being made to build more schools.
“We have approached the responsible office before to identify land to build a school but the land that was identified was too small,” he said.
Honourable Moyo said the unavailability of land, or the delayed identification of space was the reason for the delay for the disbursement of funds to construct the school.
“Money can only be allocated when the land for the school has been identified and till today, we are still waiting for the land to be availed to us. The longer it takes for the land to be identified and the longer it will take for the funds to be availed and the school to be constructed,” he said.
Minister Moyo expressed with sadness that some parents were encouraging their children to take up jobs in mining areas instead of making sure that their lives are secure with an education.
“Just because these young kids come back home carrying R50 after labouring at the mines they think it’s a good thing because they can buy bread and other daily basics. They are not considering that these children are being exposed to a lot of bad behaviours and environmental hazards that will destroy their future,” he said.
One of the Peace Champions, Bishop Ngqabutho Ncube mentioned that the unavailability of primary schools in Maphisa was a great danger to the children especially the girl child as they were at risk of being raped on their way to or back from schools which are far from home.
“Our roads are not like the ones in the urban areas, but it’s mostly forests, and our girl or boy child is not safe. We are not always there to protect them as they go to school but we have faith and we trust that they come back home safe,” he said.
Mrs Cecilia Sikhosana said the closure of schools due to Covid-19 was another reason that parents pushed their children into doing jobs that are risky. She said it was saddening to see girl children as young as 14 years roaming around the mines selling different kinds of produce.
“It is us parents who are to blame for the misfortune that befalls our children. Who in their right mind sends a girlchild into the lion’s den for the sake of money? We are destroying the future of our children as some of them are turned into wives and impregnated at those mines,” she said.
However, the Honourable Moyo said as parents they do not encourage the girl child to be pregnant at a young age. however, he said such girls can now later go back to school and learn with other children so that they do not derail from their schoolwork.
“As a parent I do not encourage that the girl child be married or get pregnant whilst they are young because they will miss a lot of stages in their life that they have to go through. However, in a case where this has happened, we encourage the parents to send them back to school as the government now allows them to go back to school,” he said.
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