The school sits at the heart of a mineral rich province and is a few kilometers from the famed Marange diamond fields.Marange diamond fields are estimated to be the size of Wales of the United Kingdom.Yet students as young as six here are forced to learn in an environment that depicts medieval times.
Picture three teachers leading three different classes of children and conducting lessons within ear shot of each other.It is an open setting and there are no walls separating “classes”, creating a noisy affair that passes for learning.Students in grade 2B, grade 3A and Grade 4C at Zimunya Primary School are getting used to it though. Like their senior classes learning under a similar environment, they have no choice.
More than 70 percent of the school’s estimated 1 000 children learn in the open with no furniture and that is just a fraction of what they have to go through in a country that has signed and ratified several regional and international treaties recognising quality education as a fundamental right.School children sit on tattered sacks.
Those who bring cardboard boxes along enjoy a bit more comfort. Water, which is the responsibility of government firm, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, is accessed once in seven days and that will be a lucky week. Teachers do what they can to cheer up the children but they admit it is tough keeping them in “class” under such conditions.
“I try to motivate them but I can only do so much given the circumstances,” a teacher tells The Legal Monitor during a recent visit.“A few of them abscond classes. But the energy to ask why that happens is very little,” says the teacher, refusing to be named. School officials smell a disaster in the near future, as if the obtaining situation is not disastrous enough.
“With the rainy season fast approaching, I am hoping that some donations come our way and we roof one of the buildings which is supposed to be an office for the staff and we house the ECD (Early Childhood Development) class there,” says acting school development committee chairperson Edward Senzekwa.Senzekwa’s carpentry skills seem to come handy at Zimunya Primary School.
He now offers his services for free to his school.“We accept any donation. Anything. Anything that can make life for our children better is most welcome. They are our future, we cannot destroy their lives so I will soldier on,” he says.Acting school head Mildred Mutedzi says passion by teachers, students and parents such as Senzekwa keeps the school going.
“Our pass rates are improving and that is encouraging. Children from neighbouring schools come looking for learning places here,” says Mutedzi, adding: “The parents work very well with the staff and that is encouraging.”Zimunya, as a peri-urban settlement, is supposed to have running tap water, but that is not the case.
As a result, the school is still rooted in the blair toilet system.“Even the neighbouring communities are benefiting from these toilets. Before the construction of the blair toilets, school grounds would be full of human waste,” says Reverend Paul Damasane, a director in the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture.
Post published in: News