The Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail Reporter
THE Anglican Diocese of Manicaland of the Church of Central Province of Africa (CPCA) is considering privatising some of its renowned schools.
This could affect high schools such as St Augustine’s in Penhalonga, St Faith’s in Makoni and St David’s Bonda Girls High in Mutasa District.
In a statement last week, the Bishop of Manicaland, Retired Reverend Erick Ruwona, advised stakeholders that they have since begun the process of privatising their schools in line with the institution’s education development plan.
“This upgrading process is in response to challenges we have been facing in the delivery of our founding goal of provision of accessible wholesome learning experience to learners in the communities we have established. The rest of the 53 schools we currently run in Manicaland East Province of Zimbabwe will be upgraded in subsequent phases of the programme.”
Rtd Rev Ruwona said upgrading the institutions was motivated by lack of infrastructure development and maintenance due to consumptive termly budgets that leave little to nothing for capital projects.
Local communities that were originally meant to benefit from the schools, he added, were no longer able to enrol or actively participate in the running of the institutions.
“Over the years, we have instituted various interventions aimed at addressing the above-stated challenges with little success, thus we have opted to address the challenges from a structural angle.
“We are doing this by reverting to our founding status, where our institutions ran without Government salary for teachers or grant aid for the targeted mission schools.”
He said privatising the schools will help to modernise and maintain state-of-the-art infrastructure to meet the needs of Education 5.0 vision.
Internal consultations regarding the matter have since been finalised, with external consultations involving the parent ministry, community leaders and other stakeholders set to be completed by month-end.
“Final position on the upgrading plan will be communicated by end of July 2021, while transaction period will be from August to December 2021. Implementation of the upgrading plan to start in January 2022,” reads part of the memo.
