Enrolment poser at Gwanda College

Questions never seem to end every time Gwanda Zintec College engages in its students recruitment exercise.

Last Friday was the last day of submission of applications for the college's September 2015 intake. While the process of sorting out the applications has only just started at the college, media is already amassed with queries by prospective candidates particularly those from the two regions of Matabeleland and Bulawayo.

Concerns seem to be emanating from dismays at the recruitment patterns of the last few years. The populace of the region continue complaining on the dominance of students from other regions over those from Matabeleland.

Following years of complaints in the recruitment patterns, Minister for Provincial Affairs for Matabeleland South Abednico Ncube recently issued the college with an directive to give enrolment priority to applicants from Matabeleland region particularly in the wake that Gwanda Zintec college is the only teacher training college in the two Matabeleland regions. Complaints at hand seem to be suggesting that this is not being adhered to.

Complaints made available to media claim that students from Matabeleland regions are not being accepted by colleges in the other regions at the same scale as colleges in Matabeleland are accepting applicants from the other regions. The complaints note that the Ministry of Education continues to complain about the shortage of teachers in the region yet the college produces teachers every year which makes it a training ground for other provinces.

In its newspaper advert calling for applications for the September intake, Gwanda Zintec College invited applications for teachers to train in Sotho, Venda, Kalanga and Shona. A check on adverts by colleges from the Mashonaland Provinces whoever proved that non of the colleges made an offer to train teachers in any of the Matabeleland languages there by raising eyebrows.

"Whenever we raise this concern arguments have always been that the college is a national college and must so enrol students from all areas unconditionally but do the other colleges in the other regions do the same" reads a complaint.

A closer analysis of the college's last few intakes indicated that while the system promulgated by Minister Ncube was being implemented in some guise, the Early Childhood Development teachers training was dominated by students from other regions outside Matabeleland. This means that while focus on the enrolment of general students is on students from Matabeleland South, no attention is paid to ECD which leaves many students from outside the region being clandestinely channelled there.

Further analysis of the enrolment process showed that the enrolment of students is too centralised with the Dean of Teacher Education who is the sole authority responsible for recruitment. The college may need to open up the process to involve more members of staff to reduce the level of complaints that always come up following the college's recruitment exercise.

A snap survey of the students origins at the college revealed an unbalanced set up in terms of students population by language. Out of 30 students who were randomly selected it was confirmed that 70% of the students population at the college is from the Mashonaland provinces.

Responding on how the trend remained so, respondents claimed that perhaps the people of the region were not applying for enrolment at the college to train as teachers. One respondent who claimed to be from Marondera said that she had managed to get a place at the college after three of her previous applications failed because she had been using a Marondera address but got the place after using a Gwanda address which proved lack of thorough checks on the prospective applicants.

The media failed to get a comment from the college authority on the recruitment criteria in place referring all media questions to the Ministry of Higher Education in Harare. An official at the Ministry in Harare asked the media to send through questions in writing for consideration.