The Sunday Mail
The Sunday Mail Religion recently visited Mutendi Mission School and spoke to Mr Sanctions Mutendi, the headmaster. He shed some light on how the school, which was established in 1984, has fared so far. He also spoke on the school’s prospects for the future. Read on:
The school recently received the Secretary’s Merit Award out of the 330 secondary schools in the province. Our students at O-Level were sitting at 86 percent from 83 to 85 percent which earned us the award.
At A-Level we are just shy of 100 percent as we are offering the best curriculum Zimbabwe can offer. I was due to travel to India to view some techno-schools there as the church is putting up a new school.
We want it to come up with an outstanding curriculum. There is also the Nziramasanga Commission, there are submissions which have also been made to review the curriculum to address the gap, the national needs and education, because we are critical in supplying the human capital to the industry of Zimbabwe.
Some schools screen children rigorously but we have a whole array of students. Our teachers go beyond the call of duty even if they have a class of 48 they try to give individual attention. This is a Mission School whose ethos is so immersed into the church values system.
Our core business is to educate the students but we want to produce wholesome students who are spiritually stable and morally upright as our motto is Righteousness exalts nations states.
Somebody was telling me that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line and that is what we try to teach our students — that there are no shot cuts.
The church plays a very key role in guiding our students, they have morning and evening prayers everyday. When we started adhering to church principles, we saw fortunes rising in our results because the Bible says, “six days have I given you shalt thy labor”.
And even when the Lord blesses he looks at what you are doing, not wishful thinking. When you get an education you become a citizen of the globe.
It has also become a tradition to have representatives in the Children’s Parliament. It shows we are actually a microcosm of society. We are producing politicians, engineers and representatives of society.
And as educationists, we are mandated to produce people who can fill existing gaps, we are trying our level best to do that. If we field a high office such as that of child vice-president, we are on the right track.
It’s an indication that we are carrying out the right of passage which has been entrusted to us as a school.
We have also introduced Agriculture up to A-Level in line with Zim-Asset and the defining national policy of indigenisation.
Land is very critical for the national economy and therefore we felt that Agriculture should be taught up to A-Level. This gives our students the relevant skills and experiences.
But we feel that vocational technical training is lacking, it needs a lot of funding to go full throttle.
Yes our kids are doing Computers, Agriculture, Fashion and Fabrics, Industrial Textiles but we want to go into Civil Works like brick and metal work.
So we have a serious shift from the grammar school which is churning out professionals for the white and blue collar jobs. We want people who are equipped to go into the industry.
The school also has an integrated set-up. The philosophy behind the integration of the visually impaired and their sighted counterparts is that they don’t live in institutions but with people in the real world. So we are giving them that experience in this school so they easily integrate.
