Ndoro must wake up from his deep slumber

PRIMARY and Secondary Education communications director Taungana Ndoro said in a recent news release that his ministry considers sending learners to boarding school as a luxury.

He was responding to complaints by parents about the exorbitant fees charged by both primary and secondary at both day and boarding schools.

I declare to all and sundry that the young director (according to his photo in the Press) is in the wrong job. Education is not and never was a luxury in all of humanity’s existence, regardless of where it is gotten, how low it is gotten and at what cost.

Taungana badly needs to study more about human sciences. Sending a child to a boarding school is a choice and not a luxury: A choice between two environments. And choice is a sacrosanct right to be enjoyed by all.

A boarding school is a onestop-shop and has to be more expensive than a day school, for obvious reasons; but it is not a luxury, for Pete’s sake!

Boarding schools are a means of decongesting day schools, especially in urban areas where populations continue to grow exponentially every year.

More than ever before, Zimbabwe badly needs more boarding schools in rural areas in order to stem the rural to urban migration tide. And you know what Ndoro, it will be the urban-based parents who will send their children to the countryside to enjoy the health-promoting aesthetic and pristine environment.

The word private is self-explanatory. Private schools are owned by private investors. They are based on class distinction and they make no secret about it. They are run by boards of directors and employ their own teachers and their fees are not subject to ministerial “approval” or otherwise.

They are provided for under section 75 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. If I decipher correctly Ndoro’s use of the word “luxury”, he seems to erroneously conflate missionary and private schools, thus giving the general public the impression that the two are the same when, in fact, they are at polar positions.

Fees at private schools are the king’s ransom, if you will, virtually.

One would not be betraying one’s honesty by observing that their standards are far higher comparatively speaking.

Maybe Ndoro would like to tell me what constitutes school fees and levies when the Constitution prohibits that and why does his ministry approve payments by parents for church school teachers conferences and a myriad other “associations”?

He must also state why it is that parents are not allowed direct contact with the ministry before budgets are approved? Ndoro, boarding schools are not a luxury.

They have produced the cream of professionals in the country. They are the pioneers and trailblazers of African education, especially in rural Zimbabwe.

Shocked Citizen