A school that once was an army barracks

CHEGUTU – HARTLEY 1 Primary School was established in 1930 as army barracks
for injured Rhodesian soldiers. However, in 1945,after the Second World War, the
barracks were turned into a school, with a total enrolment of 120 learners – children
of white commercial farmers.

It was only at Independence that black pupils were considered but no corresponding
expansion to the building structures was undertaken.

This was revealed by the school’s headmaster, Leonard Nyamayedenga, during the
school’s prize-giving day on Tuesday last week.

The theme of the occasion was “Provision of quality inclusive education for all”.
Nyamayedenga said the school has an acute shortage of facilities such as toilets
that used to cater for 120 learners but are now required to cater for more than 1700
pupils.

Hartley 1 Primary is now a good school, posting scores of over 95 percent pass rate
in Grade Seven final examination results. It offers day and boarding places.

There is an acute shortage of toilets. The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us about
social distancing, hence we need to increase number of squat holes. Remember, we
talked about the increase in enrolment from 120 to 1732 learners, but no toilets were
built since independence," explained Headmaster Nyamayedenga.

The school also requires a durawall, since the grounds are used as love nests by
some notorious members of the community," added Nyamayedenga.

The guest of honour at the function, who is also the Stanbic Branch Manager for
Chegutu, Lois Mukumbi, said the theme itself means that the school is taking all
learners – those with disabilities as well as facilitating gender equality.

According to the Constitution of Zimbabwe, Section 75, education is free for all
hence Hartley 1 Primary have embraced this idea by building classrooms with two
doors each to include all learners and cater for learners with disabilities, said
Mukumbi.

She thanked the school authorities for engaging TelOne to install WIFI at the school
as it enables learners to do their own research at their own time, therefore improving
quality of education.

Mukumbi urged parents and guardians to fully support the school by timeously
paying fees, in full.

I urge parents to timeously pay school fees in full as this way the school will achieve
exponential growth and compete with others," she explained.

The guest of honour also encouraged parents to closely monitor their children from
untoward behaviour. She said drug abuse menace has affected many schools
countywide and Hartley 1 Primary is no exception. Abuse of drugs leads to
indiscipline by learners who pose danger to other innocent learners, she said urging
parents to monitor their children as they are future leaders.

Mukumbi reminded learners to be smart, punctual, disciplined and hard-working for
all these attributes will make one achieve his or her intended goal of passing
examinations and succeeding in future.

And, aware of the current dangers from drug and substance abuse, Hartley 1
Primary School rallied against the scourge.

The learners rallied against drug and substance abuse through play and poems that
denounced drug and substance abuse during the school’s speech and prize-giving
ceremony.

In their poems, learners described the types of drugs and substances that students
and communities are abusing in school and society.

During his speech, Headmaster Nyamayedenga alerted parents to the fact that
pupils as young as Grade Ones were inhaling substances and getting intoxicated.
He encouraged parents to closely monitor children regardless of age as children are
now experimenting with drugs and substances.

In their play, Hartley 1 Primary pupils mentioned that it is everyone’s responsibility to
campaign against drug and substance abuse and urged churches, community clubs
and other organisations in communities to preach against the scourge.

As a result, most schools in Chegutu are carrying out campaigns during speech and
prize-giving days as well as during daily learning activities in order to teach them
while the learners are young.

Present at the prize-giving day were Chief Ngezi, district schools inspectors, heads
of Government departments, local schools heads and parents.