Boost for troubled Gwanda Schools

Eight Primary Schools from Gwanda District have so far received a boast of stationery and other learning aids from well wishing former students of various schools of Matabeleland South province.

The project which was started as an initiative for schools in Wenlock area of Gwanda North under the banner of Ingqama Elephondo Initiative by two sons from Enqameni (as Wenlock area is popularly known) Bekezela Maduma Fuzwayo and his South African based colleague Bongani Halimana Ndlovu has grown from just focusing in the Nqameni area under Chief Mathema to tackle the whole of Gwanda District and Matabeleland South Province with an aim of eventually covering the whole of Matabeleland region.

The idea which at the moment is an online coordinated activity where the coordinators meet up with former students of Matabeleland from all over the world and invite them to contribute stationery and learning aids to the schools that they went through back home. The emphasis of the project is that donating members should as much as possible make their donations in material such as stationery , learning aids or even computers and very little in cash. So far stationery has been received and handed over to the school in Gwanda North where the initiative has been well accepted and understood by the former students.

Speaking in an interview, Project Director Mr. Maduma Fuzwayo indicated that so far they have been busy in Gwanda North where they have managed to collect stationery for Grade Seven pupils at Wabayi Primary School and Gwakwe Primary School in Ward 6, Maphane Primary School in Ward 7, Mayezane Primary School and Sizeze Primary School in ward 8 and Glass Block 2 Primary School and Sinkugwe Primary School in Ward 3. The allocation gives each grade 7 learner a set of exercise books, ballpoint pens, HB pencils and a ruler enough to cover them for the remaining part of the year.

Speaking at a handover function at Glass Block Primary School on Wednesday, Maduma Fuzwayo told the gathering of parents and students that as a grouping they are very concerned about the continuous failure rate of the schools in Matabeleland particularly Matabeleland South and more so Gwanda District and have decided to take the initiative to join in the fight to better the schools of the region. Maduma Fuzwayo added that Glass Block 2 Primary School which is one of the seven schools in Gwanda District that got a zero percent pass rate in last year's Grade 7 examinations is one of the reasons that touched the online grouping to come up with urgent plans to venture into supporting the province's education sector.

"We can talk of all the development that we want, we can have all the bridges and all the roads and all the boreholes but as long as we fail to invest in developing our education all that is meaningless as we will continue to have 100% failures and that means we have no future at all as a region. Other provinces in the country have put education as priority number one in development and they have excelled while we have put education as the least priority and we are always complaining," he said.

Speaking at the same gathering, Councilor of the ward Mr. Limukani Nyoni applauded the idea of grouping former students to invest back into their schools.

"I am very ashamed that as we speak here I did my grade 5 in this very classroom that we are in today and it still has the same floor same broken windows, same everything as it was some 20 years back and I have personally not contributed anything to better the situation. It's very sad and embarrassing to think that some people who don't even know this school have come up with such an idea and thought of us before we ourselves could think of ourselves. This is a great idea that we must all buy, develop and sale to others. If we don't give priority to education people from other regions will always come and take the jobs in our areas while we watch because we will not be qualified for the jobs," said councilor Nyoni.

In an interview from his Johannesburg base Mr. Halimana Ndlovu urged everyone who once attended a school anywhere in Matabeleland and wants to plough back to their school to get hold of the grouping as it seeks to combine efforts to fight the high failure rates in the schools.

"At the moment it's only about 40 of us and we have already set an example of what we want this huge project to encompass. We invite everyone who attended a school in Matabeleland and is concerned about the school he went to and we will discuss with them. We are in a very huge exercise of collecting data base of all the schools in the region to ascertain what challenges the schools are facing and so will be able to advise anyone who gets hold of us on how best they can help in their former school, " said Halimana Ndlovu.

Speaking later on at the presentation of the stationery at Sinkugwe Primary School, Maduma Fuzwayo said that the program is not only limited to stationery but everything that can help better a child's learning environment to learn better.

"We have been around a number of schools and the challenges we see at the schools are so touching. Its true there is pupils that come to school from January to December and not bring with them on a single day an exercise book let alone a pen to write with. We have several other challenges like hunger, lack of furniture, poor infrastructure like classroom blocks and even toilets and there is no way by which we can expect children to excel in those conditions,' said Fuzwayo. Speaking on the sidelines of the presentations, Fuzwayo said that their organization is thinking along the lines of engaging government to convince it to make it mandatory for all schools to have former students associations as was done with the School Development Associations.

"There is millions of former students out there who if well coordinated and regulated can plough back very meaningfully to the development of their schools and we will try by all means to sale the idea of enforcing old students associations to government."

Halimana added that the still to be formalized organization is looking for coordinators from all the districts of the region to make the work of the organization more effective. He also added that they are in great need of support from any other willing donors as the immediate plan of the organization is to set up offices in every major centers of the region and have fulltime support staff to coordinate the activities from.

"This is a very huge dream which we initiated as a just a Face book chat but now we are so committed to seeing it grow big and cover the whole country if possible, we therefore call on everyone willing to be part of this dream to get hold of us by visiting our Facebook page Matabeleland South Ideas Development Centre."