By Ronny Zikhali

OVER 100 schools in Zimbabwe are facing sanitary infrastructural challenges and the Ministry of Education, Sport, Art and Culture will soon be rolling out a plan of action aimed at rectifying that.
The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, said this would be part of the Government’s efforts to improve the learning environment in schools.
“It has been agreed as a policy to make sure that infrastructural development is implemented especially when it comes to the issue of sanitary systems in schools to restore a conducive learning environment,” he said.
The minister said both rural and urban schools have been hit by water woes in the past months leading to some schools being forced to suspend lessons by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare over unhygienic conditions.
“The situation in some schools is definitely a mirror of the challenges that the education sector faces across the country and the obstacles to child friendly learning requires a deliberate programme to restore the conducive learning environment that the country used to experience,” he said.
According to the Minister, at least 100 schools do not have a functioning sanitation system and the Ministry wants to start rectifying that as part of infrastructural development in schools.
Senator Coltart said his ministry has determined that there are some important
investments that need to be made in the coming year.
“This would be to address critical challenges that are being faced by schools like poor sanitation systems or even malfunctioning sanitation systems,” he said.
The minister said although rural schools are the ones in urgent need of both reconstruction in terms of the infrastructure and the sanitary systems the focus is going to cater for both rural and urban schools so as to avoid closure of any school due to malfunctioning sanitary systems.
“We are focusing on both rural and urban schools, sanitary conditions have to be improved in all schools in the country,” said Sen. Coltart.
The Minister said the main focus is on toilets because when toilets are not functioning it becomes a health hazard to the pupils.
“Our policy is to provide good sanitary conditions for all the schools particularly when it comes to toilets, we will start looking into that before anything else”, he said.
As a ministry the formulation process of the budget is currently underway to look into the issue of infrastructural development in schools.
“We are going to engage the Ministry of Public Works and Local Construction as we carry out the reconstruction process,” he said.
In January this year, the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare ordered Coghlan Primary School in Bulawayo to suspend lessons over unhygienic conditions.
The Ministry also said the infrastructure at the school, which has an enrolment of 1156 girls, was no longer safe for a learning environment.
According to the report most of the school’s toilets were no longer functioning, posing a health hazard to the pupils and the 34 teachers.
In February this year, a serious water shortage hit Madali Primary School in Zezani area of Beitbridge District following the breakdown of two boreholes servicing the village.
The district appealed to the government and well wishers to assist the community of Madali by rehabilitating the two boreholes which have not been functioning for several months.
In March this year Fletcher High School in Gweru was also dogged by shortage of water, and it drilled two boreholes to supply the institution with adequate water.
The water crisis of the school prompted Fletcher Old Students Association (FOSA) to fund drilling of boreholes while the remainder came from parents through levies.