PRIMARY and Secondary Education Minister Cain Mathema has implored schools to invest in viable commercial projects and desist from relying on fees and levies to finance their day-to-day operations.

He also spoke strongly against the mobilisation of teachers’ incentives, highlighting that the practice was illegal.

In an interview with The Manica Post on the sidelines of the Zanu PF Provincial Coordination Committee meeting in Mutare on Sunday, Minister Mathema said School Development Committees that were mobilising incentives for teachers risked being prosecuted for conducting the illegal activities.

Minister Mathema said with SDCs struggling to finance their operations due to Covid-19, schools should do away with the “business as usual mentality” and devise strategies to make the best out of practical subjects like Agriculture, Wood and Textile Technology, Metalwork and Food and Nutrition, among   others.

Minister Mathema said education was a social equaliser.

“Public and council schools are not doing what is being done by trust schools.  These schools have between 12 and 24 hectares of land, and a hectare is enough for them to engage in commercial activities that can generate enough money for the development of the institutions.

“Public schools must engage in commercial activities to enable them to fund some of their needs.-Manica Post