Suburban
THE Zimbabwe Combined Residents and Ratepayers Association (ZICORRA) has urged all schools in Harare, especially those in the medium and low density suburbs to consider students residing in wards where the schools are based first in the 2022 enrolment.
Peter Tanyanyiwa Suburban Reporter
Schools were supposed to open on January 10, 2022 but the Government deferred the opening until further notice on New Year’s Eve in the wake of rising Covid-19 deaths and infections, which have however in the past week started edging down, according to Ministry of Health and Child Care daily statistics.
Of late there has been widespread concern with residents saying schools have been enrolling several children from outside the wards where the schools are based leaving out learners who live close to the schools.
In an interview, ZICORRA provincial chairperson for Harare Mr Lawrence Kuleya said several residents are complaining that school places are being given to outsiders at the expense of locals.
“As ZICORRA we are working on this matter of locals not being considered first for school places. One school we have engaged over this issue is Hallingbury Primary School for their ECD and Grade One enrolment.
“Hallingbury has always responded well when we engaged them in the past. So does Ellis Robins, St Johns Emerald Hill and Mabelreign Girls High School. This problem is really rife in Government primary schools which are really few. So, there is a competition for ECD and Grade One places,” he said.
“We also have a problem of residents with local addresses themselves writing affidavits for their relatives residing far away.
“This has also contributed greatly to this scenario whilst at the same time the residents themselves blame school authorities and school SDAs (School Development Associations) for allocating school places corruptly.
“So, it’s a problem that must be looked at from both angles. Residents need to organise themselves properly to curb this issue.
“As ZICORRA we are prepared to assist as we have done in other places in having residents create databases for parents in their areas which we will submit to schools to consider for their enrolment processes as we have done with Hallingbury Primary School authorities,” said Mr Kuleya.
ZICORRA re-emphasised the need for communities to take schools as their service providers and assist them where they need assistance.
“This is a serious issue which we have discussed with a number of schools. Residents don’t have to assist financially but even donating consumables like bond paper, stationery, buying Zesa tokens, contributing towards maintenance of sports fields etc. goes a long way in assisting the maintenance of schools.
“The standard of schools in an area goes towards the property values in any given area. Residents must be aware of this. So, they must not leave everything to school heads, parents and SDAs alone,” added Mr Kuleya.
Ward 16 residents have been urging central Government and council authorities to build more public schools in the ward and expand the infrastructure to match the increase in population.
A number of new suburbs have been developed in Ward 16 while new ones continue to crop up exerting pressure on the existing infrastructure such as water and sewer, health facilities, other services and schools.
According to the residents, the authorities have neglected Ward 16 as far as the construction of more schools and expansion of infrastructure in the ward is concerned.
The residents said the population has since tripled and more people continue to be allocated residential stands but the number of schools and other services are not being increased. The same goes for infrastructure, which has not been expanded to cater for the growing population.
Residents said the situation was getting dire as it was now common to find 80 students in a single classroom at the public schools in the ward.
Residents said the population of Ward 16 has grown 10-fold since Independence yet there is no corresponding development in social services and expansion or new infrastructure.
“It’s ridiculous that we now find 80 children in a single classroom. Ward 16 population has increased from 5 000 with three junior schools and two high schools to the size of a small town with just under 50 000 residents and not a single new school,” said a concerned resident.
“No new Government school has been built since 1980. It is true there are only three junior government schools which have been there since 1980 namely Hallingbury Primary School, Alfred Beit Primary School and Haig Park Primary School.
“The two high schools are Ellis Robins High School (a boys’ high school) and Mabelreign Girls High school. The whole ward depends on those schools regardless of the ballooning population,” said Mr Kuleya
“There has been no upgrading of any infrastructure not only pertaining to schools but the whole ward is served by one council district office, one clinic, one post office, one Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company office and one police station.
“All these institutions are overwhelmed. A visit to Mabelreign shops will just show you how over populated this ward is now. One would easily think maybe there is a rally or function there whereas it will just be residents in the ward doing their shopping.
“No wonder why there are many problems in this ward,” said Mr Kuleya.
Some new private schools have been built in the ward but most parents cannot afford the fees.
The shortage of schools has seen the mushrooming of illegal institutions set up by business people taking advantage of the gap to offer services to parents and pupils.
In 2020, the City of Harare’s development control unit ordered four schools operating illegally in Avondale to cease operations following complaints by residents.
In recent years in Ward 7, parents have been thronging Avondale Primary School in search of ECD and Grade One places as the school was one of the public schools in the capital city, which was recording 100 percent pass rates at Grade Seven almost every year.
Long queues were a common sight at Avondale Primary School each time in early January as parents and guardians from Avondale and other suburbs waited for their turn to register their children.
Due to Avondale Primary School’s reputation, parents from other areas outside Avondale were going as far as misrepresenting information such as home addresses in order to secure places for their children.
In 2018 authorities at Avondale Primary School told Suburban that they would carry out a screening process which includes physically visiting homes to check if all children registered stay in Avondale.
The school authorities undertook to ensure priority would be given to children from Avondale and those from other areas would be accommodated if there were still places available.
It could not be established what the situation regarding enrolment has been like at Avondale Primary School in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
In May last year, the High Court ordered the City of Harare to stop any development on a Tynwald South stand which residents argue should be reserved to build a public primary school.
Justice Tawanda Chitapi reserved judgement in the application by Tynwald residents through the Harare Residents Trust to stop the City of Harare from converting the stand for any other purposes other than the building of a public primary school.
In the interim, Justice Chitapi ordered the City of Harare to ensure no development takes place on the piece of land until he has delivered his judgment on the dispute.
Justice Chitapi reserved judgment but granted an interim order preventing any development or allocation of stands on the piece of land in dispute.
Most new suburbs in Harare have no public primary and secondary schools forcing children of residents in these suburbs to travel to neighbouring suburbs or even across town to attend school putting them at danger as they cross busy and congested roads to get to school.
The students also face transport challenges because public schools do not provide transport for their students because they enrol students based on the zoning system and they assume all the students under their enrolment live within distance of the school.
The shortage of schools has resulted in pressure at existing schools which are forced to enrol up to between 60 and 90 pupils per class in some instances, making the teacher-pupil ration quite skewed with the danger of compromising the quality of education.
