via RadioVop Zimbabwe – Political Pressure To Address Deployment Of Non-Ndebele Speaking Teachers In Matabeleland Mounts 25 June 2014
Zanu(PF) has moved to address the emotive issue of deployment of non-Ndebele speaking teachers in the Matabeleland region to teach early grades, the party’s national secretary for education Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said yesterday.
Ndlovu told Southern Eye he had written to all party provincial chairpersons, provincial and district education secretaries beginning in Matabeleland alerting them of his visit.
He said a thorough research was needed and talking through the media relegated the issue to a mere “talk show”.
The development comes days after Zanu PF national chairperson Simon Khaya Moyo told a inter-provincial workshop attended by different ministers at Elangeni Training Centre in Bulawayo that he would seek audience with Primary and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora over the emotive issue.
“I have written to all party provincial chairpersons and secretaries advising them of the planned visit to assess the deployment of teachers,” Ndlovu said.
“I know the issue of deploying non-Ndebele speaking teachers is a hot topic in the region and my party chairperson at the weekend said he would summon Dokora who is my deputy in the politburo.
“I need a comprehensive report on what is happening and such details are crucial for my central committee report for congress.
“They should tell me what they are doing about it. The danger of just talking through the media, but not addressing the root causes would render the issue a talk show. It has to be solved.”
Ndlovu said in the early 1980s, the same issue ruffled feathers and President Robert Mugabe had to “intervene”.
“Mugabe said that was wrong and had to stop. At that time, teachers were recruited from Harare and just sent out to schools without the knowledge of both the provincial and district education officer and even staffing officers,” he said.
Parents and educationists in Matabeleland have long blamed the low pass rate in the region on the deployment of non-Ndebele speaking teachers in both primary and secondary schools.
Pressure groups such as the Mthwakazi Youth Joint Leaders’ Resolution have even protested the “unfair” deployments.
The pressure group demonstrated at Makuzeze Primary School in Mangwe, Matabeleland South, demanding the transfer of the school head from Mashonaland after only one pupil passed the 2012 Grade 7 examinations.
Education officials and academics in Bulawayo last week blasted the Civil Service Commission for deploying non-Ndebele speakers to schools in the region and said this contributed to the low pass rate.
Primary and Secondary Education deputy minister Paul Mavhima said the government was revisiting the policy of deploying teachers to ensure children were taught by people who understood their mother tongue.
There was a huge uproar in the southern region of the country following revelations that the 2013 Grade 7 Ndebele Paper 1 examination contained slang and other vulgar words, among other vocabulary, not commonly used in everyday conversation.
COMMENTS
I want to believe they will act.Lets wait and see.
I hope they act. I feel a sense of mistrust when zanupf senior staff interfere in gvt ministry affairs. My child says they can’t hear a single word from their Shona teacher. Instead they are teaching her Ndebele during lessons. Ndlovu must act swiftly, though I still mistrust. It’s always promises.
They have no choice. Who on earth would condem his/her child, to perpetual slavery. What Zanu is doing in matebeleland amounts to ethnic cleansing.
This actually confirms the aims, spirit and intentions, of the 1979 grand plan. Shona must live, shona must rule,shona must be spoken, dilute all the blood, make ndebeles an extinct spices. That we can not allow, under and circumstances.
Good day
People should look at the root cause and stop being xenophobic.Its not like the person responsible for deploying teachers just deploys shona speaking teachers in Matebeleland but shona speaking teachers will be many than those who speak Ndebele.
It starts from recruitment from colleges,if you go Hillside,UCE,Belvedere,Seke,Mutare,Masvingo etc you will find out that the majority is Shona speaking.Come deployment if a region wants teachers you deploy where they are needed.
Instead there must be subject specialisations not what people are saying.In Chiredzi there are Shangani speaking people and they being taught by Ndebele and Shona speaking people and they are passing.
Whats so important about Ndebele,the base line they dont want school and this is a scape goat.
Just visit NUST and have statistics of the enrolement you will find that Ndebeles are fewer than Shona,why?
They want to drive taxis and go to RSA and Botswana.
The government must be holistic when looking at this issue.
@witness
Just acknowledge you are a tribalist – stop trying to rationalise the irational. What you are saying about Mthwakazi people not being interested in school, but in driving taxis, and going to SA and Botswana is written in the 1979 Gukurahundi ZANU PF Grand Plan.
This what you were taught as a Shona; no matter how untrue and stereotypical it is you will die believing it.
Are there no Shona speaking taxi drivers in Zim. Are there no Shonas in RSA or Botswana – infact the majority of the Zimbabweans in these countries are Shona – so why dont you say the same things about them?
So many Shonas have been eaten by lions and drowned in the Limpopo river – what do you say about this?
This argument that the Shonas are many is hollow. This is a ZANU PF government created problem.
Why didnt we have this problem in the 1970s during the Rhodesian era, before ZANU PF came to power? I mean the Shona people were always many even then, but we never experienced this problem; why?
This is exactly why people are calling for Devolution. This is just ethnic cleansing by stealth – PERIOD!!
Kurima nzara nowedenga