Rural schools to get free internet following zero ...

Rural schools to get free internet following zero pass rate: Govt

**Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Torerai Moyo**

Zim Now Writer

The recurring poor pass rates in rural schools has seen the government promising to install free internet services in marginalised communities to allow disadvantaged children to access more educational tools.

During Parliament’s Question and Answer session on Wednesday, Zanu PF legislator under the Women’s Quota, Mail Nkomo, Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Torerai Moyo, to explain government policy on schools that continue to score zero pass rate in “O” Level examinations.

The Minister responded, saying that poor results are mostly happening in rural schools where learning resources are limited.

He added that the government is considering installing a server that will be accessible even in rural areas without the use of the internet or Wi-Fi.

“Now, turning to the question, Hon. Speaker, what we are doing as a Ministry is to look at those schools that continually have a zero percent pass rate. We have a raft of measures, Hon. Speaker; we want to carry out research studies to establish the causes of zero percent pass rates, whether it is a culmination of shortages of teaching/learning materials in those schools. We have seen Hon. Speaker, that zero percent pass rate is usually scored by schools in the rural areas as there are serious disparities between urban and rural schools,” Moyo said.

“Rural schools are disadvantaged very largely as compared to urban schools, and we are going to pursue measures of embracing ICT in our schools for online learning to happen in the rural areas.

“We are going to embrace a server, which will be accessible even in rural areas without the use of internet or Wi-Fi. That server will be deployed to the Administration block and any learner within the radius of 100 to 200 metres, will have access to that server where teachers can upload learning materials on the server and learners will have access to that server, even notes can be uploaded to that. Assignments can also be uploaded to that server.

“So, this is one of the ways of ensuring that we reduce the failure rate, especially in schools that are getting zero percent pass rate. Basically, Hon. Speaker, we want to ensure that we carry out a study to establish what could be the causes of zero percent pass rate.”