Old Mutual roped in to fund new education curricular

GOVERNMENT has roped in financial services company, Old Mutual, to fund its irrigation and fish farming projects at 2 500 high schools across the country as part of the new education curricular introduced by Education minister Lazarus Dokora early this year.

President Robert Mugabe announced the deal yesterday during the official opening of the children's party ahead of today's 37th Independence celebrations.

"The ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has commenced the Zimbabwe Schools Water and Agriculture Project that will see secondary schools in all the eight provinces commence agricultural study-work programming, borehole drilling through drip irrigation, fish farming and the benefit of solar power system," he said.

"To date 45 boreholes have been drilled and it is planned that from May 2017, a total of 100 boreholes will be drilled every month. The same project is expected to contribute significantly to the sustenance of the school feeding programme and to competence-based learning by all of you."

The programme is also expected to enhance productivity in agriculture after the land reform programme that saw more than 4 500 white commercial farmers moved from their farms to pave way for indigenous farmers.

"You must remember that we took our land back from our colonisers. Land is like our country's resources, our natural God-given resource. You are inheritors of it, and, therefore, must take pride in making our land productive," Mugabe said.