Parents demand removal of Lupane headmistress

A school head in Lupane, Matabeleland North province, has clashed with locals over abuse of office among other charges as the row over the deployment of teachers in the region continues.

Locals with support from the secessionist Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) are now demanding the removal of Mlonyeni Primary school head, Abigail Mpinge, after failing to find each other.

This emerged at the school’s annual general meeting held on February 27 this year, where tempers flared and parents walked out on Mpinge.

“Among the challenges faced at schools are misappropriation of school funds, undermining community members and corruption,” a parent with a child at the school said.

MRP spokesperson Velile Moyo, who also attended the meeting, confirmed the clashes between Mpinge and the locals.

“The parents demanded that the current SDC [school development committee] gives full account to them as a lot of irregularities were seen from the reports,” Moyo said.

“The school development committee seemingly had no answers to give to the parents.

“Mpinge seemed to be running the school single-handedly and this infuriated parents. Already, there were tensions as she was being accused of being an outsider.”

Moyo said the parents demanded that general hands should be locals and members of the community.

This is after it emerged that Mpinge allegedly hired her relative to be a security guard.

Moyo said several irregularities surfaced during the meeting, exposing the rot in the school.

A parent, who only identified himself as Ndlovu, accused Mpinge of abusing the Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam) programme.

“This happens when Beam delays paying fees and the head asks parents to pay fees, but when Beam has paid, she never refunds them. She is defrauding parents,” Ndlovu said.

Efforts to get comments from the SDC were fruitless yesterday.

Contacted for comment, Matabeleland North provincial education director Jabulani Mpofu said he was in Harare attending a meeting.

Primary and Secondary Education ministry spokesperson Taungana Ndoro promised to respond to questions sent to him later on.

He had not done so at the time of going to print last night.

In 2016, some MRP members, including villagers and the SDC chairman, were arrested after they demanded the removal of a nonNdebele speaking headmistress from Mlamuli Secondary School in Lupane.

The headmistress was later transferred along with six other teachers from the same school by the Primary and Secondary Education ministry.

Last year, lawmakers took the Primary and Secondary Education ministry to task on the government’s skewed teacher recruitment policy, which they said favoured “outsiders” at the expense of locals.