ORIEL Boys High School yesterday held its Annual Speech and Prize Giving Day, which was attended by parents, School Development Committee members and representatives of the school’s various partners.
Despite facing challenges such as poor payment of school fees and a lack of textbooks and learning facilities, the school’s head, Ropafadzo Matemavi, expressed gratitude towards parents who came to support their children.
“Textbooks and other learning facilities have been hard to come by. This, however, has not stopped us going forward in fighting the poverty mentality in all Oriel learners and staff,” he said.
Guest of honour, District Schools Inspector, Godfrey Chimbwanda, commended the school’s progress and emphasised the importance of a competence-based curriculum that caters to students’ needs and societal needs.
“I’m happy and impressed to see the plans envisioned for this school coming to fruition. The commencement of the boarding school was a great achievement indeed.
“It is inspiring to see the theme of the year 2023, ‘Fighting poverty mentality through the competence-based curriculum’. This curriculum emphasises on what learners are expected to know.
“In other words, it is learner centred and it is also adaptive to the changing needs of students, teachers and society,” he said.
He said Zimbabwe is endowed with brainy young individuals who can be innovative and creative.
“The education system is there to assist learners to be motivators so that they improve on their skills on the creation of goods and services.
“This can only be achieved if we fight the poverty mentality and be creators of an employment. Let us strive to be employers and not employees.
“To those who distinguished themselves in the academic field, in sports and cultural activities, keep up the good work and never stop exerting yourselves. To those who did not make it to the list, there is always room at the top.”
SDC chairperson, Keopstone Lifa, recognised academic achievements and reported that the school’s agricultural projects have helped them become more self-sustainable.
“The SDC committee has had a fairly good year in terms of achievements made at the school.
“The dream of converting the school into a boarding school was also finally realised in January 2022, having emanated from an idea in 2018,” Keopstone said.
The SDC built the head’s house, while the practical subjects’ block and science laboratories have all been repainted, and the basketball courts modernised to all-weather courts.
The school strives to be self-sustainable and has embarked on agricultural projects like vegetable gardening, goat rearing, broiler chicken project and bee keeping.
The SDC has also constructed one of the best fish ponds and very soon parents will be supporting the school by buying fish from the school.