BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
Pupils at Victoria Falls’ Ndlovu Secondary School have been hit hard by the ongoing job boycott by teachers over poor salaries with only four of the educations at the institution reporting for duty at the start of the new term.
Some teachers across the country have not been reporting for work saying they are “incapacitated” because they cannot afford transport fares and food with their meagre salaries.
The government had set February 22 as the deadline for teachers to return to class or face dismissal after it awarded civil servants a marginal salary increment.
Mbonisi Mzingwane, acting Ndlovu Secondary School headmaster, last Friday speaking at a handover of sanitary pads to students at the school donated by The Kingdom Hotel in partnership with The Able Women’s Associates (TAWA) said the situation was bad.
Mzingwane said out of 16 teachers required to teach about 370 pupils, the school enrolls, only four had turned up.
“We currently have four teaching staff and myself in a few subjects that I take other classes on,” Mzingwane said.
“Students are missing on subjects such as Family and Religious Studies, Physical Exercise, Food Science, English and Combined Science.”
Mzingwane said the teachers said they did not have enough money for them to return to work.
“We have a few that went for marking for the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (O’Level papers), but the majority are citing issues of incapacitation,” he said.
“We are also missing two more in vacant slots following the transfer of the teachers, and that has resulted IN poor pass rates because we are faced with Covid-19 and unavailability of teachers due to strikes as well as lack of adequate resources, among some of our pupils.
“We even have to contend with pregnancies among our female students. So those are some of the reasons why even our pass rate has been reduced to four percent.
“Most of our students are boys and in most cases we have seen girls dropping out after Form Two for various reasons ranging from early pregnancies to lack of sanitary wear, among other provisions.
“Even at their final year boys perform way better compared to our girls”
Mzingwane said the school’s catchment area also produced Grade 7s with poor results.
“I think to address these challenges, especially on the issue of girls missing out on their lessons, parents and community members should play a role of educating them about the importance of academics,” he said.
“For us as a school, our hands are tied to intervene in family matters, but our community leadership can help us with that.”
Ndlovu Secondary School is on the outskirts of the City of Victoria Falls.
Slider2 years ago
National4 years ago
Opinion3 years ago
Tourism and Environment3 years ago
National2 years ago
National3 years ago
National2 years ago
National3 years ago