Mangwe Rural District Council (RDC) in Matabeleland South is building a secondary school in Makorokoro which is set to cut short the distance travelled by learners to the nearest schools.
Situated in Ward 17, Makorokoro which borders Botswana only has a primary school, a situation which has seen learners travelling more than 10 km in order to access the nearest secondary school in Khalanyoni or Maninji.
Mangwe RDC chief executive officer, Bongani Ngwenya, told CITE, they have since embarked on the Makorokoro Secondary School project using devolution funds.
He said the school should have opened this year had there been no interruptions to their plans and will now open its doors to learners next year.
“There are two blocks there; it (the school) has not yet opened,” said Ngwenya.
“If there were no interruptions, our plan was that it should have opened at the beginning of this year but we are now behind schedule because our funds have not been coming as we expected.”
In 2019 the local authority received a total of ZWL$4, 707, 000 under devolution funds with the first tranche coming in July, second in August and third and fourth tranches in December.
For 2020, the RDC had been allocated ZWL32 million but only received ZWL$4, 5 million.
The local authority is also yet to receive disbursements from its ZWL$ 151 million allocation for this year.
Ngwenya said they were also seized with preparatory works for the opening of the school which include the registration of the education facility.
“But we are fairly hopeful that come January next year, that school will open its doors to learners,” added Ngwenya.
The poor pass rate in Matabeleland has partially been blamed on the limited number of schools, forcing learners to travel long distances in order to get to the nearest school.
