THE poor pass rate at schools in Bubi District of Matabeleland North Province has been attributed to parents failing to play ball in educating their children through provision of adequate resources as well as timely payment of school fees to ensure the development of comfortable learning environments.
This has been buttressed by the revelation that 26 out of the 76 schools in the district are not yet registered because they do not meet the minimum infrastructure development requirements for a school. This came out of an education stakeholders meeting held on Friday at Inyathi that was attended by school heads and School Development Committee (SDC) chairpersons in the district where Bubi Rural District Council Chief Executive Officer Dr Patson Mlilo said they were going to engage traditional leaders to help them force parents to pay school fees and recoup debts owed to schools.
The meeting was a post-mortem of the poor pass rates recorded by most schools in the district that was becoming endemic.
The meeting noted that there were a number of causes to the poor pass rates, among them lack of proper infrastructure in the schools which was attributed to the reluctance by parents to pay school fees.
Most headmasters and SDC chairpersons were in unison that a good number of parents were not paying fees at all while some were not paying on time. The meeting agreed that only a handful were loyal when it came to fees payment.
The failure by parents to honour their fees payment obligation to the schools, they noted, was impacting negatively on the development of the necessary basic education infrastructure for their children leading to a poor pass rate.
“One factor that stands out like a sore finger is the reluctance by parents to pay for their children’s education. It has emerged from the meeting that parents are sending children to school but do not want to pay school fees and yet they expect to see development at the school.
“You then ask yourself questions like, on whose expense do they expect the various infrastructure development at the schools to be done. Most of our schools hardly have enough classroom blocks, let alone teachers’ cottages and toilets. Some are still learning in farm houses and qualified teacher retention at those schools is quite difficult if not impossible,” said Dr Mlilo.
He said as a result of the failure by most parents and guardians to prioritise the payment of fees of their children, a number of schools in the district do not meet the minimum standards of infrastructure development to convince the authorities to register them and they continue to serve as satellite schools with very few qualified personnel.
“Of the 21 secondary schools that we have in the district, four of which are private, and 17 belonging to council, only eight are registered and nine are not. And of the 55 primary schools that we have, three of which are non-council, 38 are registered and 17 are not. What it means is that all schools that are not registered are not qualified to act as examination centres. They are regarded as satellite schools that fall under registered ones. In other words they are seen as an extension of registered schools and usually do not have an entirely qualified human resource. Learners from such schools usually register for examination at the nearest registered schools and nearest sometimes means a tiring distance. This put a strain on our children but it emanates from parents who are unwilling to pay school fees and develop nearest schools for their children,” he said.
Dr Mlilo said it was now time to eradicate the Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) mentality from parents where they believe that a school was an NGO where they get everything for free.
He said council was going to explore other options available to it such as Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), and the use of devolution funds to improve infrastructure and bring services close to the people in the entire district taking from President Mnangagwa’s “Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo/nyika inovakwa nevene vayo” philosophy so that no-one and no place is left behind.
He paid tribute to the Government for a sterling job through the Public Sector Investor Programme (PSIP) saying the programme has benefited some communities within the district through funding educational infrastructure.
Dr Mlilo said four of the district’s schools were destroyed by the recent rains and they were mooting insurance as the panacea to the problem. Some headmasters and SDC members also called for the review of the corporal punishment saying they were expected to instill discipline in the children without the instruments to do so which they said was unfortunate.
Council chairperson Clr Cookie Moyo had earlier on emphasised the importance of education saying the district was failing to meet recruitment quotas in the Government services because the youths were not adequately equipped academically. – Sunday News
