By Terrence Mawawa, Masvingo|Schools here have been forced to suspend lessons so to prepare for President Robert Mugabe’s lavish birthday party.
Investigations carried by ZimEye.com this week revealed local schools were ordered by CIO agents to release their pupils and teachers to assist in preparations for the 21st February celebrations scheduled for the Great Zimbabwe monuments on Saturday.
Staff members at Chirichoga, Mapanzure and Mapakomhere secondary schools told ZimEye.com they were last week ordered to release pupils to help in the preps for the massive bash. While the CIO operatives ordered the respective schools to release pupils to prepare for the bash nothing has been done to compensate for the lost time that has lapsed.
“We were ordered by men from the president’s office to release pupils to assist in the preparations for the birthday bash. We had to suspend lessons for the past two weeks since we had to comply with the directive from the office of the president. We do not know how we are going to compensate for the lost time,” said a school head who declined to be named. ZimEye.com is reliably informed pupils and teachers from neighouring schools have been ordered to take part in the preparations for the bash during the normal school hours.
Mugabe has in the past boasted of achieving a high literacy rate and the latest development has irked the local parents who feel shortchanged because of learning time lost in preparation for the bash.
The massive bash is expected to blow up at least $800 million .