Primary and Secondary Education Perm Sec comments on why Govt is neglecting schools in rural Matabeleland, blames land reform

Responding to a question on why the government was neglecting schools in rural Matebeleland during an Improving Girls Access through Transforming Education’ (IGATE) meeting in Bulawayo last week, Primary and Secondary Education secretary, Sylvia Utete-Masango blamed the resettlement programme.

Said Utete-Masango:

With 2000, as we all know, the agrarian reform; there was movement. I have been to Matabeleland South, where we had even to navigate to where a satellite school is. So, at least, government had to make sure that children go school and these structures had to be put up. At the moment, they are satellite and this means they do not have the right infrastructure that is expected.

Utete-Masango claimed the government is in the process of constructing new and modern schools throughout the country. NewsDay notes that most school buildings in rural Matabeleland, particularly Binga, are comprised of huts made from pole and dagga with thatched roofs. Children have to sit on bare dusty floors, while teachers live in single dagga huts, some of them without doors.

More: NewsDay