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Mpumelelo Nyoni Chronicle Reporter
THE government has started investigating the recent stabbing of a Form 4 pupil at Njube High School in Bulawayo.
The probe team is also keen to unravel the rampant abuse of alcohol by pupils following an application by the school to exclude a 12-member gang of bullies behind the attack.
Bulawayo Provincial Education Director Dan Moyo told Chronicle yesterday that a team of psychologists from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education had for the past two days been holding meetings with school officials as well as parents of each of the 12 bullies who stabbed a pupil late last month at the school’s grounds.

The PED said the boys would know their fate after a comprehensive report is compiled by the psychologists in about a fortnight.“Naturally, after a report was made of the stabbing incident, the boys were suspended for two weeks after consultations with their parents. The issue of their expulsion has to be dealt with from a scientific point of view where they’ll be interviewed and counselled by a team of psychologists from the ministry instead of just chucking them out of the school,” said Moyo.

He said the boys’ individual backgrounds would be examined after revelations that the pupils were smuggling alcohol into the school premises.

“After reports that the pupils were smuggling alcohol into the school premises, the team will find out where they got that alcohol and if their home environment contributed to the situation,” said Moyo.

He said in the event that the boys were excluded from the school, they could still be able to write their Ordinary Level examinations coming from home.

“If they’re excluded from the school, consultations with the boys’ parents, the school authorities and Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) will be made and there’s a possibility of the boys writing the examinations from home,” said Moyo.

When a Chronicle newscrew visited the school at around 11AM yesterday, officials from the ministry were in a meeting with teachers and the boys’ parents. The newscrew was barred from attending the meeting by the school’s deputy headmaster, Calvin Dube.

The gang, all from Njube, allegedly targeted pupils who were not from the same suburb. One of the members stabbed their victim after he refused to be bullied.

Recently, two pupils from Sobukhazi High School were suspended for two weeks after they were caught having sex in one of the classrooms at lunchtime. At the same school, a Form 3 girl was rushed to hospital after giving birth to a baby boy in the school toilet.

Sixteen drunken pupils from St Columbus High School were also booted out of the Anglican-church run school on the opening day of the third term after smuggling cheap whisky into the school. In another incident, a Milton High School pupil was last term excluded from the school after an altercation with a teacher.