Agony of negotiating for school admittance
DO you want to hear hilarious stories of parents and guardians negotiating to have their children admitted into schools without paying full fees?
Easy! Just visit a headmaster, a teacher or bursar near you.
I heard some parents were faking illness and peddling lies of family bereavement to gain sympathy and have their children accepted at school.
Others bought all manner of gifts and parted with a bit of cash to oil the palms of some greedy headmasters and school authorities to buy time and or have their children admitted in school until month-end, when they will get paid and settle the debts.
“Pange paipa wangu. Ndakatozonyebera headmaster kuti waifazi yangu nemumwe mudhoni mudiki vakabatwa cholera saka mari yese yakaenda kuchipatara vakandinzwisisa,” I heard a certain bloke unashamedly saying in a pub.
“These days you simply have to be creative and smooth in terms of speech so that you get your way. A principal or a headmaster is a human being just like you and me so they will incline an ear to whatever you tell them,” he purred.
His colleague weighed in, saying he had also done the same at his child’s school.
“I sold the guys at the school a dummy and they swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I told them a sob story that drove them to tears and they allowed me to start paying the fees in instalments right up to the end of the term. I am of the Moyondizvo clan and I know the right words to select to sway someone’s thinking,” he said while ensconced on a tall bar stool. Uniform dealers were not spared. People in the business of sourcing, sewing and distributing school uniforms were confronted with many challenges as people sought cheaper alternatives and or buy uniforms on credit.
“I have been sewing and selling uniforms for close to a decade now. As I speak, I have a book full of people who came collecting school uniforms for their children on credit with a promise to pay at the end of the month.
“Even if you ignore their calls and knocks, some of them show great persistence and importunity that you end up yielding to their demands. I offered them the uniforms on credit just as they had requested because these people were mostly neighbours and I had nowhere to run,” said a tailor, who is popularly known as Chihera.
Another tailor, Richard Mavhurume, said he had no option, but to sell his unforms on credit to those who approached him because times were hard.
“School uniform sales are seasonal, so we have to make sure that we sell the bulk of the stuff we have when
demand is high. This includes selling these on credit because ndiyo mari yacho.
“People borrow a lot and we hope they will pay without challenges when the agreed time arrives. Children belong to the whole village, so supplying uniforms is my own way of assisting the nation,” he said.
Gentle reader, as I write this piece, employers are inundated with requests for advance salaries as people battle to make good on their fees payments.
Men who sired secret children always borrow from employers, friends and relatives behind their wives’ backs to avoid trouble while fulfilling the national obligation of sending children to school.
With parents having pulled all the stops to ensure children return to school, the onus is now on the learners to put their maximum effort so that they pass and become better citizens of this motherland, Zimbabwe.
Inotambika mughetto.