By Simba Chikanza | Another Zimbabwean teacher has been investigated after assaulting a male student at St Benedict’s High School in Mash East.
“Tapotsa taurayirwa mwana at this school,” the abused lad’s father tells ZimEye.
The teacher, a Mr Manjoro, has to date been recorded apologising over the abuse.
As ZimEye interviews the teacher, on Sunday morning, below is the father’s unedited report authored in Shona:
Zimbabwean teachers vajaira kurova vana zvisina tsarukano. The child in question is my son in Form 6. The headmaster, senior teacher and another teacher came into their dormitory at night android found some students using laptops & cellphones; my son is a prefect, but at that time he was already fast asleep. Laptop computers are allowed at the school for Form 6 students, but they are not allowed in the dorms. The senior teacher beat my son by hands, choking his throat and threw him onto the bed, thereby hitting by neck on the metal base of the bed.
They searched him and found out that he had no cellphone or laptop. His fault was that he is prefect. They were saying he should have reported the use of the electronic devices. How could he do that; he was sleeping? To make matters worse, the school didn’t notify me or the mother of this incident from that Wednesday, 13/10/2021 till Saturday, 16/10/2021 nor did they take the boy for medical attention. I only came to know about the case on Saturday through other people who have links at the school. I had to phone the school and that’s when they started to apologise to me. The boy was only taken for medical attention after I asked them why they haven’t taken him for medical examination. I know children can be mischievous and may need to be spanked on their backs, hands or legs by a sjambok. Using open hands or fists is unacceptable. In this incident, many other children were also beaten.