Moffat Mungazi
Samuel Kadungure
News Editor
THE first term of 2025 has commenced on a positive note, with a notable 90 percent of teaching staff reporting for duty, while the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland is working tirelessly to expedite the construction of dormitories to resolve the accommodation crisis at its boarding schools.
Acting Manicaland Provincial Education Director, Mr Richard Gabaza last week said all schools in the province had a smooth opening.
“Generally, our schools opened well due to thorough preparations, including the timely enrolment of Early Child Development, Grade One, and Form One learners. Parents and guardians were also diligent in paying school fees, which is still ongoing.
‘‘I would like to thank them for their positive attitude, as this will ensure effective teaching and learning,” he said, adding that he had not received reports of schoolchildren being turned away due to non-payment of fees.
He encouraged school heads to work with parents to have payment plans in place.
“Parents must fulfil their obligation to pay school fees, while teachers must ensure that teaching and learning takes place,” he said.
However, Mr Gabaza mentioned an incident at Zamba Government Primary School in Mutare, where parents resisted the posting of a deputy head, alleging that she practised satanism.
“Urgent action was taken to remedy the situation, and calm has been restored at the school,” said Mr Gabaza.
To ensure that teachers attend to duty, Mr Gabaza said District Schools Inspectors (DSIs) were directed to monitor teacher attendance.
“So far, we have teachers in place, delivering lessons in classrooms. While we may not have 100 percent attendance on the opening day, reports from districts indicate that between 80 and 90 percent of the teachers reported for duty. We expect these disparities as the term opens, but anticipate that all teachers will join us by the end of the week,” he said.
Mr Gabaza also confirmed that a team had been dispatched to investigate allegations of over-enrolment of Form One learners at four Anglican schools in the province, resulting in an accommodation crisis.
The high demand for Form One places led to a significant surge in enrolments at several schools, including St Faith’s High, St David’s Bonda Girls High, St Mathias Tsonzo High and St Augustine’s High schools.
To address the issue, the Responsible Authority (RA) — Anglican Church — intervened by constructing low-cost prefabricated dormitories to decongest overcrowded dormitories.
In the short term, the RA has also accommodated some learners in Form Five dormitories, while construction work is ongoing.
Unfortunately, the demand for Form One places far exceeded the available spots, with only 25 000 boarding places available for over 393 000 Grade Seven candidates.
“We are investigating allegations of over-enrolment and the construction of temporary structures at St Faith’s, St David’s Bonda, St Augustine’s, and St Mathias Tsonzo high schools. We aim to establish the facts and collaborate with the RA, Government arms, and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to find a way forward.
“Regarding uniform changes, the correct procedure involves consulting the School Development Committees and obtaining parental support. The ministry must also be informed of such decisions,” said Mr Gabaza.
He said the ministry will monitor the situation to avert disease outbreaks.
“The fact-finding team is on the ground so that we address the issue once and for all. We cannot rely on hearsay. That is not proper. After gathering the facts, the team will produce a comprehensive report, which we will analyse and engage the stakeholders for a sound footing going forward,” he said.
Mr Gabaza said the team involves experts in planning and building to assess the suitability of the temporary dormitories under construction.
Anglican schools take pride in high-flying passes, and have traditionally limited enrolments to about 130 learners per stream.
However, this year, Form One enrolment shot to over 200 due to an alleged clandestine recruitment by the diocese and School Development Committees (SDCs) — stretching everything at their disposal.
The Anglican Diocese of Manicaland education secretary, Reverend Edmund Samutereko, refuted allegations of parallel recruitment exercise by the RA, saying Section 10 of the Education Act (Chapter 25:04) empowers school heads only to enrol
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learners.
He said the RA does not interfere in the running of schools.
“There is nothing like that. As we speak all Form One learners are in their dormitories. The alleged over enrolment has nothing to do with the RA, but the SDC and its cahoots.
‘‘We leave the enrolment of learners in the hands of the school administration because we do not run schools. The diocese will never recruit learners, and it never recruited anyone.
“It is also not true that there is overcrowding at St Faith’s, St David, St Augustine’s and St Mathias high schools. We do not know where it is coming from. These schools actually under-recruited, and still have space for more learners. At St Faith’s High, we have serious problems with the SDC to the extent that we cannot work together.
‘‘The SDC does not respect the RA, and the ministry is aware of that. We cannot work together. The RA does not have access to that school. The SDC has assumed total control of the whole school, which in terms of corporate governance is wrong.
‘‘They school should not be governed by one party because there will be no oversight. Of course, the Bishop has his enrolment quota, which he recommends to the heads for consideration.
“Before enrolment, we agreed to construct prefabricated structures to decongest our dormitories and accommodate more learners. We took them for a look-and-learn in Harare so that we could have such structures at the schools, while planning for permanent structures in the long term.
‘‘We are constructing temporary structures to decongest dormitories at St Faith’s High. We have about 180 Form One learners who signed contracts, while about 70 were sneaked in without contracts,” he said.
St Faith’s High SDC chairman, Dr Lovemore Chipunza, accused the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland of doubling enrolment at all its schools.
“We highlighted to them that double enrolment comes with a huge cost, and it implies doubling everything including accommodation, classrooms, teachers and their accommodation, hostel staff, security, dining room and church capacity, teacher to pupil ratio and above all water and sewer reticulation.
“In our efforts to decongest hostels, we proposed to the ministry to use bunk beds. Unfortunately, we were advised that bunk beds are no-longer permitted in schools.
‘‘The SDC is still exploring alternative solutions to decongest hostels. Possible solutions include temporarily moving teachers from their houses to pave way for students and rent houses in Rusape for the displaced teachers.
‘‘This is a desperate move to solve the crisis bedevilling us. We also requested the ministry to talk to the RA to honour and fulfil their promise of building acceptable modern hostels, classrooms and toilets as a lasting solution to this crisis.
‘‘Double enrolment should be done after constructing the required infrastructure. While the SDC pursues solutions, we invite suggestions from you to avert this crisis,” said Dr Chipunza.
