Mzingwane High School shut down after riots

Mzingwane High School shut down after riots

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By Nkanyiso Moyo

MZINGWANE High School in Matabeleland South has been shut down and students sent home following violent student riots two weeks ago.

All pupils from the school arrived in Bulawayo on Thursday this week, following a directive to close the school by the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture.

Pupils and parents said the headmaster, Bhekimpilo Mahlangu, with the assistance of the police, had ordered them to leave the school.

“This is a pathetic situation, we were yet to finish some exams and we were just told to go,” said one Form 3 student.

“I live in Gwanda, but we were told that everybody would be dropped off in Bulawayo. I have no money and nowhere to sleep.”

Eighteen pupils spent the night at the Bulawayo Central Police Station on Thursday after failing to find their way home.

One parent, picking up his son at the Bulawayo City Hall, expressed dismay at the way the school was being run.

“There is general lack of direction, Mahlangu should be removed before the third term starts,” said the parent who asked to remain anonymous.

Mzingwane High School, located in Esigodini along the Bulawayo-Gwanda road, is one of Zimbabwe’s leading schools.

The first bus ferrying students arrived in Bulawayo at around 3pm Thursday.

A meeting set for Saturday at the school to review the second term and third term fees has been cancelled.

And a teacher said: “Things have not been the same at the school since his arrival, its more like a personal thing for him.

“But this school has a history and that history is being rewritten under his watch, soon standards of education will fall and students will shun the school.”

New Zimbabwe.com has been told of recent attempts by parents to push the headmaster out over a string of allegations, including corruption and abuse of school property.

Things came to a head on July 15 when one of the headmaster’s loyalists, a teacher, drove students to a football tournament in Bulawayo in the absence of the school’s official driver.

While the tournament was on, sources said, the headmaster is said to have phoned the teacher and ordered him to drive back to the school because he wanted to make use of the truck.

“The teacher who was coaching the students tried to explain that the tournament was still being played, and the students could not leave before it was over, but the headmaster would have none of it,” said a source at the school.

“The boys whose tournament had just been cut short were furious. While they were getting into the bus, one of them fell off and broke his hand. The teacher driving the school truck was insistent on taking the injured student back to school, and not the hospital, sparking a furious row.

“Two of the students then refused to go on the truck saying they wanted to go and inform the injured student’s parents. Once the truck got back to Mzingwane, the headmaster had a bust-up with the school’s soccer coach, prompting an intervention from the students who chased down the headmaster as he fled on foot.”

Our sources insist the headmaster DID NOT slap the teacher, as most of the student body was led to believe.

During the riot which soon attracted hundreds of other students at the boys-only boarding school, students broke the windscreen of the school bus and cut a fence surrounding the hostels after the headmaster had locked the gates.

Six windowpanes at the headmaster’s house and the main door to the staff room were also damaged and the estimated coast of repairs is $100 million.

Mahlangu, who took over from the popular Tapu Vincent Moyo, was previously a headmaster at Dombodema in Plumtree. Sources said some teachers who have been at the school long before his arrival are opposed to his leadership style and accuse him of exploiting school facilities for personal gain.

Mahlangu’s immediate plan after the riots, according to sources, was to force the suspension of senior teachers, the head boy, his deputy and the some prefects.

When that failed, he sought the closure of the school citing outside elements bent of disrupting the administration of the school.

There is information that the school is $6 million in the red.

Mahlangu told New Zimbabwe.com he had requested the authorities in Harare to close down the school as there were unruly elements in the School Development Committee.

“I was not appointed by them, so when there are problems I report to the regional director who forwards those issues to Harare. This was unruly behaviour by students and we need about $100 million to repair all that and it is the parents who will pay.”

The Matabeleland South regional director for the Ministry of Education, Sipho Khumalo, confirmed that the school had been closed, but would not give further details.

“It has been closed, I cannot comment further,” he said.

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