Unregistered pre-schools plead for grace period

Source: Unregistered pre-schools plead for grace period – NewsDay Zimbabwe

BY GARY MTOMBENI
THE Early Childhood Association of Zimbabwe (ESAZ) has raised concerns over the ongoing government blitz targeting privately-owned infant schools operating illegally in Harare.

Harare Metropolitan Provincial Affairs and Devolution secretary Tafadzwa Muguti gave the institutions a 48-hour ultimatum to shut down on their own or face prosecution.

ECAZ chairperson Morris Chivandire said the ultimatum was retrogressive as the private schools were complementing government efforts.

“We take note that the laws of our country require us as infants schools to register and concede to the fact that the majority of our members are not registered despite being operational. We, however, implore the government to relax some of the  requirements such as the prescribed land size required to register an infant school,” he said.

“We believe that we are complementing the efforts of the government in providing basic education which is a right for every child. This is in light of government’s own admission that it is short of 2 000 schools.”

Chivandire said infants school operators were facing several challenges in registering their institutions.

“The bottlenecks faced by many of our members are at the local government level where the registration is supposed to start with the health and environmental inspections, change of use from residential to business for those operating from residential houses,” he said.

Chivandire pleaded for a three-month grace period to regularise their operations.