The Sunday News
Richard Muponde, Gwanda Correspondent
MABHEKA Secondary School in West Nicholson in Gwanda district is on the verge of closing as pupils are deserting the institution and skipping the border to South Africa while some are opting for gold panning.
The school’s total enrolment is 84 pupils, way below the Government’s stipulated 140 which is considered for a school to be regarded as viable.
Problems of enrolment at the school are also being exacerbated by the long distances between its location and feeder primary schools.
The schools, Dwala is 32 kilometres, Driehoek 40, Mabheka 15, Sherbon 30 and Tshabezi nine kilometres away from the secondary school.
Mabheka Secondary School’s deputy headmaster Mr Liberty Mutseyana, in a report presented during a function to receive a classroom block built by Gwanda Community Share Ownership Trust (GCSOT) on Wednesday, said the situation was not pleasing.
“The distances to and from school is a challenge, Tshabezi is nine kilometres away and is enrolling a few numbers of pupils of up to seven pupils in Grade Seven. Most children are not interested in continuing with education after Grade Seven. Most parents are not gainfully employed and are subsistence farmers who say they have no money for school fees. Some parents and children attach little value to education and they track to nearby SA or get employed in plots dotted around the ward or get down to gold panning. Low enrolment is threatening the viability of the school,” said Mr Mutseyana.
He said to try to counter that, some parents through the School Development Committee requested that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education approve that some pupils stay at the school.
“In their request they also indicated that the children will bring their own food. The arrangement went on from 2004-2009 when the school temporarily closed down. Teachers had abandoned the school due to economic hardships. It re-opened in 2010 mainly manned by untrained teachers most of them locals.
The enrolment was 50 pupils and it steadily increased over the years to the current 84. However, we need an enrolment surpassing 140 for the school to remain viable and not be closed,” he said.
Villagers are now calling for the school to become a low cost boarding school.
The school was established in 2004 as a primary school using one house as a classroom from Grade One to Seven and had one teacher.
It became a secondary school the same year as per the resettled farmers’ request.
Gwanda Rural District Council then put up two structures, a teachers’ cottage and a classroom block, five teachers were then deployed.
In 2014 GCSOT built the second classroom block, drilled a borehole and bought school furniture for a combined value of more than $41 000
Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko last year warned pupils from Matabeleland South to take their education seriously and desist from skipping the border to South Africa.
@richardmuponde
