EDUCATION minister David Coltart yesterday said the government had started crafting legislation to bar political parties from using schools for their meetings. REPORT BY OWN CORRESPONDENT
The minister told NewsDay the law would be in place ahead of harmonised elections expected early next year.
“The existing ministry policy is that there should not be, in any way, any political activities in schools,” Coltart said.
“We are currently incorporating a regulation into the draft that states that schools must be political-free zones.”
Coltart said the regulation was an urgent matter and should be enacted before the next elections, “so that schools become a safe environment for both the teachers and the pupils”.
Earlier on, Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) national co-ordinator Enock Paradzai had expressed concern over the security of teachers and pupils during elections.
Paradzai said three months ago, the PTUZ submitted a detailed report chronicling how political violence had affected the country’s education system as teachers were sometimes assaulted by political activists while pupils watched.
“The government must immediately declare schools as zones of peace and as such, enact laws that restrict and criminalise the use or occupation of schools for political activities, especially during the electoral period,” he said.
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“Teachers and pupils have been forced to attend rallies of certain political parties. Politicians have been putting their campaign posters at school premises while informants, the militia and intelligence organs have been deployed at schools and used as political machinery to perpetrate violence,” he said.
The PTUZ said schools that were used as campaign bases normally achieved low pass rates during public examinations.
