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Professor Paul Mavhima

Government has announced that the construction of 17 world- class primary and secondary schools across the country is expected to start this month. The construction of the schools being built under the $20 million grant facility from the Opec Fund for International Development (OFID) is expected to take about six months. The Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Professor Paul Mavhima said on Thursday that Government had already identified the contractors and was now working on financial closure.

Prof Mavhima said Government was pushing for world-class schools with amenities such as sporting facilities, laboratories, equipment, modern furniture and standard teachers’ houses. He said the 12 primary schools and five secondary schools will be built in Mashonaland West, Midlands, Mashonaland Central, Masvingo, Matabeleland North and South, Mashonaland East and Manicaland provinces.

The Deputy Minister said next year the Government expects to build 100 schools under a public private partnership as well as upgrade 166 schools to bring them to world class standards. He said Government was working with the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) on this schools project.

Government which is cognisant of the fact that education is one of the basic human rights that must be enjoyed by every Zimbabwean child, has since independence built hundreds of both primary and secondary schools throughout the country. The settler regime had put in place a bottleneck system for the blacks’ education so that very few blacks could go beyond high school.

The rigorous screening started at primary school level and as such many pupils failed to proceed to secondary school. At Form Two the pupils were subjected to another screening and this was again done at Form Four and Six resulting in very few pupils proceeding to institutions of higher learning such as colleges and the only university available then.

This was a deliberate policy by the colonial government to deny blacks education so that they continued to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. It was because of the skewed education policy that Government at independence immediately embarked on a programme to build schools in both urban and rural areas while also increasing the number of colleges and universities.

Government has almost met its target of ensuring that pupils are within walking distance of either primary or secondary school.

The new thrust now is to improve quality of education through building world class schools. The Government apart from building new schools that meet the new criteria, is also upgrading existing schools to meet the world standards.

The implementation of the new Education Curriculum whose objective is to produce graduates that do not only excel academically but have entrepreneurship skills that they can use upon leaving school, started early this year. The world class schools that Government is building will have the required facilities and equipment to enable the teachers to implement the new curriculum.

It is pleasing to note that the first beneficiaries of the world class schools include places such as Chingwizi resettlement in Mwenezi district of Masvingo where pupils were dropping out of school because of the long distances they were travelling to either primary or secondary school.