MIDWEEK REPORTER
MASVINGO CITY-There are fears that form 1, 2 and 3 learners may end up engaging in drugs and substance abuse as they have stopped going to school until December.
Parents who called The Midweek Watch expressed concern that their children are not going to school despite having paid full fees for the term and this may lead to drugs and substance abuse due to idleness.
“When the O Level examination period started our children were told not to come to school as there are no classrooms to conduct lessons, our main worry now is the children may end up engaging in drugs and substance abuse and other delinquencies as they now spend most of the time at home doing nothing,” said Zvakavapano Marecha who has a form 3 girl at one of the urban schools in Masvingo City.
The ZIMSEC O Level examinations started in October and will stretch until end of November implying that the form 1, 2 and 3 will not be attending lessons.
The schools that have been affected most are Mucheke High, Ndarama High, Christian College, Victoria High and a few registered examination centre registered private colleges.
Most school heads who spoke to this publication acknowledged the problem but they attributed it to lack of classrooms and an influx of private candidates during examination period.
They said that they cannot turn away candidates who want to sit for their ZIMSEC examinations from unregistered private colleges.
These candidates sometimes are more than internal candidates especially for subjects like Maths and English hence the lower classes have nowhere to conduct lessons from.
When contacted for a comment the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education director of information and advocacy, Taungana Ndoro said they were going to craft a policy that limit the number of private candidates each school must take so that other non examination classes are not affected.
Ndoro also castigated some school heads for not planning for examinations periods in such a way that does not affect non examination classes.
