By Abigail Mzimbawakhe (Midlands Correspondent)
Shurugwi residents from Dorset Resettlement have decided to embark on a school construction project as their children are walking more than 15 kilometers to the nearest school.
Zimbabwe’s Education Policy requires schools to be within a radius of 5 kilometres from homesteads but children from the area are enrolled in schools outside the locality, which include Zhaugwe and Kashambe Primary Schools. This however forced villagers in ward 21 to pool resources together and construct Mlanke Primary School in the locality.
The project which is being led by the local Councillor Dennis Chiborise will assist most of the villagers as well as other people from adjacent villages as their little children are failing to go to school due to the long distance.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting, the Project Coordinator Mike Dandinda, said a classroom block was now at roof level and would be completed before the end of the year.
“We decided to come up with this initiative after realising that we do not have a school in the proximate area and our children are travelling for more than 15 kilometres to that which is said to be the nearest school.
“This is leading to the failure of our children in their school work as they will be tired when they get to school and they will be unable to concentrate in their lessons so we were left with no option except to transform our ECD School into a complete primary school,” Dandinda said.
Committee members of the project were happy that all the residents in the area are cooperating in the construction of the school.
“We have moulded about 10 000 bricks for our primary school blocks. We are contributing bricks and we hope to finish the first block before the end of this year,” they said.
The committee members are appealing for assistance from government and the donor community to construct a number of classroom blocks so that they can have the first batch of Grade One to Grade Three next year.