via College head threatens journo with death – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 5, 2015
ROCKLAND College’s principal director McDonald Makondesa yesterday threatened NewsDay reporter Winstone Antonio with death for seeking comment on allegations that the Zimbabwe School Examination Council (Zimsec) has withheld the school’s Geography “O” Level results on suspicion that the paper was leaked.
Makondesa, who is also the Geography teacher at the Harare college, is under fire from parents with children who sat for the Geography examination paper at the institution who are demanding results for their children.
A close source confirmed to NewsDay that Zimsec had withheld the Geography results to allow for investigation into the allegations. The source said there were allegations that the paper was leaked and pupils had revised it before they sat for the examination.
While Makondese went ballistic and threatened to kill the NewsDay reporter after being approached for comment, one senior teacher at the school confirmed the development.
“Are you a member of the CIO or a police officer to question me about such issues? I will kill you and rot in prison if you want to play with me,” Makondesa warned.
“Honestly speaking, I don’t want to talk to you on that issue. What is your problem? You have visited the school and what more do you want?”
But another senior teacher said: “Yes, I can confirm that the results were withheld by Zimsec, but I don’t know why. Just like you, we are even shocked and we actually want to know why they have been withheld.”
He added: “We are just waiting for the day they will be released as we have been promised from Zimsec that they will be released anytime soon. Such matters are between the employer and employee so I cannot answer that on their behalf.”
Zimsec was yesterday non-committal, saying it would not comment on issues that were under investigation.
“For the information you are looking for, you can get it from Rockland College since Zimsec does not comment on issues that are under investigations,” Zimsec spokesperson Nicolette Dhlamini said.
“We will only comment on the matter when the investigations are complete.”
NewsDay is reliably informed that some of the teachers at the college do not have the required qualifications to teach some of the subjects offered at the institution.
One of the teachers (name supplied) was reportedly blacklisted by the Primary and Secondary Education ministry for impregnating a student.
COMMENTS
We have serious problems with these people who are supposed to be in positions of control.They lack simple things like common sense and wisdom to deal with the press and the public because they always think that they are always right when the opposite is true.
There was no need for him to take this issue personally unless he has something to hide.The best answer he should have given is”No comment” and leave.
This attitude happens on daily basis within our country eg when an electrical or electronic item is bought and then fails within the specified warrant period,the seller always tries to place blame to the buyer,coming out with funny excuses which have no technical facts.Here is a simple example-you buy a modern laptop with LCD screen which is made using new technology of liquid crystal material to form pixels in millions which are subject to various failures due to the fact that this technology is still in its infancy.Most of these manufacturers do not guarantee 100% production perfection,therefore our dealer agents of these items quickly blame the customer for any failure of the screen to avoid taking responsibility.They quickly tell you that you dropped it or you applied too much pressure on the screen without proof,because these pixels can fail in many ways e.g-1-fail to turn or twist within themselves when electrically controlled to give various colours.2- fail due to their transistor drivers short circuiting or breaking.3-just get stuck within themselves.4-high pressure applied to internally crack the back and front layers which sandwich the liquid crystals.They do not tell you about the other possible causes except number 4.
Only Samsung guarantees their LCD screens for 6 months within S Korea,therefore our local dealers should explain these conditions to customers before selling these funny makes.Reputable dealers who sell reputable laptops will replace your screen with 4-6 faulty pixels to keep their reputation.