Min­is­ter warns par­ents against tak­ing law into own hands

Chronicle (Zimbabwe) - - National News - Sukul­wenkosi Dube-Matutu

THE Deputy Min­is­ter of Home Af­fairs, Cde Obe­d­ingwa Mguni, has warned par­ents who barred their chil­dren from at­tend­ing lessons at Ta­hangana High School in Mangwe Dis­trict against in­cit­ing vi­o­lence against the school’s head­mas­ter, Mr Nor­man Mu­vimi.

The par­ents have de­manded the trans­fer of Mr Mu­vimi from the school.

Mr Mu­vimi was moved to Ta­hangana High School at the be­gin­ning of the sec­ond term last year from Mam­bale High School fol­low­ing com­plaints from staff mem­bers.

He had al­legedly com­posed 44 jin­gles which he was forc­ing teach­ers and pupils to re­cite each day “as a way of im­prov­ing the school’s pass rate.”

Speak­ing dur­ing a meet­ing with School De­vel­op­ment As­so­ci­a­tion com­mit­tee mem­bers and com­mu­nity lead­ers Thurs­day, Cde Mguni, who is also the Mangwe MP, said par­ents should wait for the Min­istry of Pri­mary and Ed­u­ca­tion to de­lib­er­ate on the is­sue.

“There is no need to take the law into your own hands but you should al­low the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to do their job and re­solve this mat­ter am­i­ca­bly and in a peace­ful man­ner. You should also re­alise that any dis­tur­bances at the school will only dis­rupt lessons and cause a huge set­back for exam classes. If you in­cite any vi­o­lence then law en­force­ment agents will be forced to take ac­tion,” Cde Mguni said.

He also urged par­ents to re­spect the de­ci­sions that were go­ing to be made by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

There have been dis­tur­bances at the school for the past year with par­ents de­mand­ing the trans­fer of Mr Mu­vimi whom they have blamed for poor ad­min­is­tra­tion and caus­ing a drop in the school’s pass rate among other things. On open­ing day par­ents blocked the school gates and or­dered all chil­dren to re­turn to their homes. They also threat­ened to take mat­ters into their own hands and evict Mr Mu­vimi if the Min­istry of Pri­mary and Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion de­cided to keep him at the school.

The Min­istry on Mon­day or­dered Mr Mu­vimi to un­dergo a pyschi­atric ex­am­i­na­tion after ques­tion­ing his men­tal sta­bil­ity. He was re­moved from the school on Thurs­day last week after par­ents with­drew their chil­dren de­mand­ing his trans­fer.

Mr Mu­vimi was es­corted out of the school by po­lice and ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials who left him at his home­stead to en­sure his safety.

In the mean­time, the em­bat­tled head­mas­ter was ad­vised to report to the Dis­trict Ed­u­ca­tion of­fice daily un­til the mat­ter was re­solved. In re­sponse to the queries on his men­tal sta­bil­ity, Mr Mu­vimi said he was men­tally sound.

A group of pupils from the school last year held a demon­stra­tion against him after he stopped them from at­tend­ing a sport­ing event, de­spite pay­ing sports levy.

The dis­grun­tled pupils were also un­happy as they had been miss­ing out on lessons while the head­mas­ter al­legedly held long meet­ings with teach­ers.

Teach­ers at the school also wrote a pe­ti­tion against him com­plain­ing that he was harsh. — @DubeMatutu

Jin­gles head Mr Nor­man Mu­vimi

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Zimbabwe

© PressReader. All rights reserved.