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Takunda Maodza Assistant News Editor—
BELVIN CHIBI, a Form Four pupil at the Catholic Church-run Mweyamutsvene Mission, yesterday missed his third national examination paper after he was barred from entering the exam room without school shoes, The Herald can reveal. The pupil has already missed two examinations — English (Paper 1) and Commerce (Paper 2) — after the headmaster’s wife, Mrs Nyasha Rubende barred him from the examination room because he had no school shoes.

Yesterday he did not write English Paper 2. Mrs Rubende is a teacher at the school, where her husband Mr Abel Zebron Rubende is the headmaster. The Catholic Church yesterday expressed shock at the incident amid indications Mr Rubende had summoned Chibi to his office and offered to pay for him to sit for the June 2016 examinations.

It is understood Mr Rubende is also keen to engage the boy’s relatives. The boy stays with his grandmother in the poverty-stricken Bocha area of Manicaland Province. Chibi had registered with zimsec to write five subjects and with three national examinations missed, there is no hope he will sit the remaining subjects.

He narrated his ordeal to The Herald yesterday. “I do not have school shoes and so I borrowed a pair of shoes from a well-wisher. It was not a school shoe. As I entered the examination room, Mrs Rubende barred me. I pleaded with her but she would not listen. I was left with no option but to go back home. I failed to write again today (yesterday),” he said.

Chibi confirmed the headmaster had offered to pay for his June 2016 examinations. “He (headmaster) said he was going to pay for my examinations in June next year. What pains me is that I had prepared hard for the examinations. I stay with my grandmother,” said a dejected Chibi.

The Catholic Church yesterday said it was disturbed by the incident. “This is a shocking incident especially considering the fact that most children in rural areas cannot afford to buy shoes and go to school barefooted,” said Catholic Bishops Conference of Zimbabwe spokesperson, Father Fredrick Chiromba. “There is also no regulation that students have to wear shoes. In rural areas the majority do not have shoes. I will need to find out what really happened in this case,” he said.

Mr Rubende refused to comment on the matter yesterday, referring all questions to the district education Office in Mutare.

Asked whether it was true that he had offered to pay for Chibi’s June 2016 examinations, he said: “I do not know where you are getting all that information from. Please tell me who is giving you all that information. I have given all the information to the district education office in Mutare.”

Efforts to get a comment from the district education office in Mutare were fruitless. Meanwhile, The Herald was yesterday inundated with calls from organisations and well-wishers touched by Chibi’s situation who wanted to assist the boy. The callers included lawyers who felt Chibi’s rights were violated.

Some turned to The Herald website to express their anger.

Read one of the reactions by one Jabu, which summarised the feelings of many: “I had my first pair of shoes when I was in Form 2 while at an “Upper Top” in Runde Rural, Zvishavane. My grandmother would brew and sell ‘doro rendari’ and also sell salted peanuts to raise my school fees. I would also do piece jobs by tilling other people’s fields to remain in school. I’m sure this is the story for most people in rural Zimbabwe where each day is a struggle to survive. All that suffering made me to resolve never to have my children have my kind of background and today have already attained a Masters degree in the Sciences.

“Please Mr Headmaster, your wife and priests at Mweyamutsvene have a heart and give this young boy a chance. You are destroying a whole generation and generations to come by denying this boy a right to education on the silly reason that they do not have shoes. This is the only chance for this boy to get out of poverty and be able to buy himself a decent pair of shoes one day. What do you intend to achieve by denying him this chance?”