Hier der Bericht von Adnos zur Lage in der Primarschule. Sehr erfreulich, aber das Wachstum bringt auch Aufgaben mit sich:
FFM a glowing inspiration of educationalisation in Mwenezi
A plain retrospection at the journey that the Friends For Matibi (FFM) has travelled with St Ambrose Matibi Primary School of Mwenezi District, Zimbabwe is enough to express how heroic the Swiss-founded organisation is deemed to be by the served community. This article is intended to celebrate the legendary manner in which the school reawakened from decades of disuse thanks to FFM, how its student-textbook ratio has sobered out thanks to FFM, how the learning atmosphere transformed in a few years thanks to FFM, how the FFM gave the school its prevailing new look, how it also catered for the school’s furniture needs given the fast-growing enrolment, how the FFM came to be viewed as a model school in the district owing to FFM’s involvement, and how the community in general got immeasurable encouragement from the welcome intensification of FFM’s educationalisation agenda. It is just easy to see where the school is heading and how the community is geared to sustain the good if not to propagate the same wider.
Officially known as Ruzogwe 2 Primary School, the school is the only other school within 20km radius from the district’s eastern boundary other than Ruzogwe. This means the authorities had an obligation rather than a choice to open at least a satellite school to ease the problem of kids having to walk abnormal distances to school. Long distances used to discourage students from going to school, a problem to which the crisis of child employment used to be essentially ascribed. Today the incidence of school-aged children being hired as cattle herders and housemaids has gone rare as a result of the reinvigoration of the educational agenda in the vicinity of Matibi Mission.
But we are talking about a school that only reopened its doors to the kids in 2013, just recently. For 14 years since 1999, the mission authorities who own the school were struggling to have the school registered. Among other issues the Church was lacking financial strength and the FFM availed the initially required Thirteen Thousand US Dollars (US$13’000) and the government re-registered the school. We say re-registered because this was not the first ever registration of this institution. The original 1963 registration which was facilitated by the Missionary Society of Bethlehem (SMB) was revoked after decades of dereliction following the country’s liberation war. Only two of the old classroom blocks were saved from crumbling thanks to the Helpers of Matibi (who later formed the FFM) who funded home craft classes which utilised these classes.
The once boys-only boarding primary school was destroyed by war in 1975 only to reopen after 37 hard years when its facilities had completely gone down. Apart from contributing towards the reopening of the school, the FFM followed up this donation 3 years later with the construction of a 3-classroom block with en suite teachers’ offices. Today the school is managing with 10 classrooms which still hardly match the present high enrolment of 300. What the FFM did in its infrastructural intervention was to refurbish the ancient buildings before building the new classrooms. Renovations were done to two other blocks and they mainly involved patching the roofs, especially overhauling the decayed ceilings. The impact that the infrastructure intervention made was in permitting the school to add grades 5 to 7, which was impossible with only 2 smaller blocks which were in place before.
As the school staggered forward with its operations, authorities also requested the hand of the FFM in constructing blair toilets for school children, after having constructed 3×2 staff toilets in 2015. In 2016, two blocks containing a total of 10 toilets were built for school kids as a result. The toilets are shown in the picture below.
The toilets were built at a time when the water sewer system was under immense pressure due to the rising population of users as well as old pipes. Currently the institution has completely resorted to the use of blair toilets pending the reconstruction of the water system in no definite time. Had it not been for the handy donation, the school would have already been forced to close. District health authorities issued threats to do so in late 2015, only for the school to be saved a year later when the FFM constructed the two blocks.
The school is also running a top-of-the-class kindergarten. This preschool has been named a model ECD facility in the district because it meets all basic requirements of Early Childhood Development (ECD), which the FFM facilitated to a larger extent. In 2015 the FFM started the project of building preschool amenities according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) standards, including a state of the art play centre, new curriculum books, age-appropriate benches and toilets. But there is a new gap in the school. The two classrooms that were being used for ECD were recently condemned for being too old. The school authorities had requested the FFM to renovate these and put ceilings on them because the local climate is extremely hot. However, even the renovations have lately been disallowed for fear that the infrastructure is irreparably worn out.
The school’s next big challenge is the construction of an examination-compliant office, fitted with secure cabinets to store examination materials. Since the school is already running a grade seven class, that class will be forced to take this year’s examinations at another school faraway because their own school is not accredited to handle examinations. This is how urgent the matter is: the candidates will walk over 10km for the duration of the examinations, sometimes having to wake up in extraordinary hours of the morning in order to be punctual. The following picture shows the old rooms that the authorities intend to renovate to form the bespoken exam office.
Other urgent assignments include additional classrooms, ceilings in the 3 new classrooms, finishing an unfinished staff house, additional classrooms furniture and textbooks. The following picture represents the roofs of the new classrooms revealing electrical tubing due to the absence of ceilings.
Starting a secondary school at the Mission is also reasonably needed as soon as yesterday, bearing in mind the soaring enrolment of Grade Sevens and the fact that the average distance between secondary schools in the district is 15km. The district is relatively backward in terms of educational infrastructure, with most schools having been constructed in the past 2 decades. Many of the schools are still remote that even the teachers are loathsome of working in them, and this has connotations of cheap quality of service. The need to open a Catholic secondary school is good in that the church is known for high tuition standards that give the learners a proper 21st century civilisation. The picture below shows available space to build a secondary school (in the top left background) and a new ECD block (in the middle open space between buildings).
Already many primary school pupils travel up to 10km to St Ambrose Primary School at Matibi Mission where their parents perceive favourable learning environment as compared to other primary schools locally. Among other advantages, the school system at Matibi is believed to provide a unique service to parents by fostering in their children a concrete social formation alongside a deep knowledge and love of God. Its catchment area used to be mainly composed of 17 local villages; however, it is continuing to expand into the neighbouring Chivi district. The school is a supplier of learners to many secondary and other schools within the nearby districts and further abroad. However, the facilities are inadequate, causing the school administrative system to still be improvising garages and residences for use as classrooms. These are creative make-ups to avoid a scenario whereby some classes will have to be conducted in the afternoon for shortage of space in the morning sessions.
The FFM is a chief player in the above narrated development for two main reasons. The first is that the prevailing economic situation does not permit the Mission to self-suffice since the villagers often default school fees payment. Secondly, even the national government is unable to meet its statutory obligation to fund social services, a phenomenon which has often seen UNICEF intervening. Of late, even UNICEF funds are unable to trickle down to all schools in need. Worse still, Mission schools are often mistaken for private businesses and because of that, they are sometimes overlooked in the allocation of grants. The FFM has thus occupied a critical position in carrying out widespread development projects at the school and the community at large.
Summary
In short, the organisation significantly lifted the educationalisation capacity of Matibi community through infrastructure and materials support to St Ambrose Primary School, thereby directly impacting the good of the villagers who now have a fully-fledged modern primary school nearby. Prior, villagers used to seek out classes in faraway places because the local school could not offer classes beyond Grade 4. Today there are classes up to Grade 7 and this has appreciably reduced the previous inconveniences. St Ambrose Primary School is also daring urban schools in respect of the recently introduced national ECD programme, thanks to the support of FFM in complementing government effort. FFM has also given a boost to the community of the unemployment by funding a home craft centre thereby intervening appropriately in the now rampant unemployment problem.