By Linda Ndiweni
Barham Green Primary school is calling upon the community to help resuscitate its dilapidating infrastructure amongst other problems the school is facing.
The school Head Mr Moyo said his school is facing a litany of challenges mostly as a result of the current economic hardships.
He said only the intervention of the community can save the school and enhance the naturing of his pupils both in curriculum and non-curriculum activities.
“Our school is facing so many challenges, recently the government introduced feeding programs at all primary school and has donated maize through the department of Social Welfare but our challenge is that we don’t have a kitchen for this program. Currently we using a temporary structure and you can imagine how difficult it is to prepare meals in such a structure during winter and rainy seasons,” said Moyo.
He added that the situation is worsened by the shortages of relish since the school garden isn’t producing enough due to water crisis.
Moyo also decried the sad state of his school in which both male and female staff members are made to share the same toilet.
Some teachers resort to using toilets designated for pupils thereby putting both the safety and privacy of students in jeopardy.
Moyo said: “We have one staff toilet which sevices both male and female members of staff and you can imagine the difficulty of sharing that. The other sad thing is that we are also operating on little cleaning detergents. We are putting our children at risk of contracting diseases as we know the city is facing a water crisis.”
The school borehole is currently not fully functional and the Headmaster says it needs to be deepened.
Amongst other challenges faced by his school, Mr Moyo said they are also failing to complete the construction of an ECD block because of the spiraling prices of building material.
He added that the school sporting facilities are also in a deplorable state.
However, despite the setbacks, the school is doing exceptionally well both in curriculum and non-curriculum activities, with its pass rate increasing from 76 percent to 86 percent over the past 3 years.
A grade 7 student from the school, Ruvarashe Jiri, came out with five units in the recent Zimsec grade seven examinations.
Recently, the school’s quiz team went on to claim a third spot in national competitions after coming first in district and provincial competitions.
The school seems to be doing well in soccer as well as two boys were selected to represent Zimbabwe in the national under 13 squad.
