Non-Ndebele speaking headmistress gives in, leaves Ndebele speaking school

THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has reportedly transferred a non-Ndebele speaking headmistress who stirred controversy in Lupane District recently.

A close source said Mrs Millet Bonyongwe, was transferred with six teachers from the same school, with immediate effect. "Officials from the provincial education office visited the school last Wednesday to effect the transfer. Four teachers volunteered to move out as well.

"The officials selected two other teachers, who were asked to submit their transfer letters as well," said the source.

The source said Mrs Bonyongwe has been transferred to Lukosi Secondary School in Hwange where she will be reporting for duty today. The six teachers have also been transferred within the province.

Parents shut down Mlamuli Secondary School two weeks ago demanding the removal of Mrs Bonyongwe who was deployed to the institution at the beginning of the year, arguing that she cannot speak isiNdebele.

Four parents were arrested following a demonstration at the school.

Mrs Bonyongwe was transferred from George Silundika Secondary School in Nyamandlovu where she had been a teacher for three years.

Matabeleland North provincial education director Mrs Boithatelo Mnguni declined to comment on the transfers saying she was not aware of them.

"As far as I'm concerned, things are back to normal at Mlamuli Secondary School. I know nothing about the transfers and can't comment on the transfers that you're talking about."

Zanu-PF Lupane West MP, Martin Khumalo, told The Chronicle last week, the non-Ndebele speaking secondary school headmistress in his constituency whom parents wanted transferred should leave.

Khumalo said if there is a language barrier, then the teacher should be transferred.

"I think if a teacher is unable to communicate well with the parents because of a language barrier, then certainly how will she relate to pupils? With such cases, the province will continue to record poor results like Mlamuli is doing right now," he said.

The MP said he was not a tribalist but a neutral leader who believed Mrs Bonyongwe was supposed to try harder and should be speaking isiNdebele by now.

"We've a lot of Government employees in the district that we work with so well but if it has failed with Bonyongwe then the earlier she leaves the better. I feel the ministry is protecting her or else we will be made to think that she came into the district to cause commotion."

At a meeting three weeks ago, the parents gave Mrs Bonyongwe an ultimatum to leave the Matabeleland North school within a few days, a similar deadline that she had been given in January.

Parents who spoke to The Chronicle at that time said they would not allow her into the school as long as she "can't speak IsiNdebele."

"She came last year and was on Thursday being introduced because that was the first parents' meeting since December last year.

"She greeted people in English and parents beseeched her to speak in IsiNdebele since it was a parents' general meeting where some wouldn't understand English," said a parent in January.

The deployment of non-Ndebele speaking teachers in Matabeleland has in recent years raised the ire of people from the region who blame it for contributing to low pass rates in schools in the region.

Last year, seven men were arrested for storming a school in Mangwe District demanding the removal of a headmistress over the same issue.