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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Chronicle Reporter
THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has opened an online application platform for 2022 Form 1 boarding places.

Schools are set to close this Friday and open for the first term next year on January 11.
Despite a spike in Covid-19 cases, national public examinations are going ahead as scheduled. The increase in cases has however, left parents and learners wondering whether schools will open on the set date next year.

Government has since last year been making significant strides to provide a safe environment for pupils to learn and write exams amid rising cases of Covid-19 in communities. Some schools have been forced to suspend lessons after recording Covid-19 cases while examinations have progressed as planned.

In a statement, Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Permanent Secretary, Mrs Tumisang Thabela said the enrolment which is starting today will run up to January 31. She said learners will be allowed a maximum of five applications at any given time.

“The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education will be running an electronic platform for enrolling Form One boarding places for 2022. Parents/ guardians who wish to send their children to boarding schools are advised to start applying through the platform (www.emap.co.zw) with effect from 13 December 2021 up to 31 January 2022,” said Mrs Thabela.

“All applicants will be allowed to make a maximum of five active applications at any given time. An applicant who has been offered a place at one school will not be eligible to apply or be considered for a place at any other school unless the offer is decline. Successful applicants will be notified through short message service (sms) by the respective school heads. Parents/ guardians are however, advised that there are limited boarding places.”

She said upon applying to a school, an applicant will receive a response which will indicate that the application is either pending, accepted, processed or rejected.

Mrs Thabela said if parents or guardians decline an offer there will be no guarantee of getting the same offer back. She said allocation of places will be done randomly from shortlisted schools.

This year schools were supposed to open in early January for the first term but ended up reopening in March due to the threat caused by the pandemic. Schools then closed on June 4 and were set to open on June 28 but the re-opening was postponed.

Schools were eventually re-opened on August 30 for examination classes and September 6 for the rest of the classes.

Due to the pandemic, school holidays have been prolonged, leaving learners with limited time to have face-to-face lessons with their teachers. Schools have been relying more on virtual lessons and radio lessons which some learners have failed to access.

The Education Ministry introduced catch up strategies to bring learners up to date. This includes blended learning and teachers have been combining some topics and also targeting certain key topics in order to compress the syllabus and online learning. — @DubeMatutu