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NewsDay

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Govt descends on unregistered schools

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Deputy Minister of Education, Sports and Culture Lazarus Dokora has condemned unregistered schools which are operating without licences and has called on the police to investigate them. There are scores of small schools and colleges operating from places like disused buildings and homes. Unregistered learning institutions sprouted in the country at the height of Zimbabwe’s […]

Deputy Minister of Education, Sports and Culture Lazarus Dokora has condemned unregistered schools which are operating without licences and has called on the police to investigate them.

There are scores of small schools and colleges operating from places like disused buildings and homes.

Unregistered learning institutions sprouted in the country at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown four years ago, when teachers downed tools for months, owing to poor remuneration.

At the dollarisation of the economy when the US dollar came into play, teachers who were being underpaid under government employ chose to supplement their earnings by taking extra lessons in their homes which eventually “graduated” into schools and colleges.

Some of these “institutions of learning” are even housed in churches, like one which NewsDay visited yesterday in Chitungwiza’s Unit K section. The church-cum-school has an enrolment of about 50 students who take their classes inside the All Saints Anglican Church.

Other than benches that are used for Sunday church services, there is no sign of classroom furniture in the church. The principal of the school, Peter Chinyadza, confirmed the school was not registered.

“We are in the process of registering the school with the relevant ministry,” he said.

Chinyadza said the school was being investigated by government. Police, he said, had been to the premises recently inquiring about the school’s registration.

“You are not the first person to approach our college asking such questions,” said Chinyadza.

“It is all in order for the police to descend on these unscrupulous colleges,” Dokora said. “They should arrest and prosecute those bent on tarnishing the image of our education system.”