Passion for education spurs Koke Wellington Koke
Wellington Koke

Wellington Koke

Ruth Butaumocho Gender Editor
Every day Mr Wellington Koke would join hundreds of workers going to work.

After getting into town people would disappear in different buildings, heading to their workstations.

With a sense of purpose and determination, Mr Koke would head towards a huge Musasa tree along Kaguvi Street, which served as his office.

It was under the huge Musasa tree, where he would convene meetings with an entourage of teachers that had to be dispatched to different homes across Harare to conduct tutorials.

The series of meetings that Mr Koke vigilantly held under the tree – sometimes under the watchful eye of the police – gave birth to Direct Contact one of the best discerning private colleges in Harare.

“Passion and zeal to turn around results for struggling students spurred me to venture into the education sector.

“The years I spent as a temporary teacher made me realise that I could contribute to the education sector in my small way,” said Mr Koke in an interview in Harare recently.

From being a mere temporary teacher who taught at different schools mainly in Mashonaland Central in the early 2000, Mr Koke is now among leading educationists, who have transformed the education sector in Zimbabwe.

Far from enjoying the rich trappings that come along with running a private college Mr Koke says he is motivated by academic excellence, hence his decision to dedicate his time and expertise in the education sector.

His contribution and expertise has been the hallmark of success at Direct Contact as attested by the pass rate the college has been getting in the Cambridge public examinations for both Ordinary and Advanced level since the inception of the college.

The private college which started off as a mere institution targeting students who wanted to repeat either O or A-Levels, has transformed overnight to become one of the few reputable private colleges with a high pass rate for public examinations.

For three years, Direct Contact has been receiving the best student award in Environmental Management as a subject at Advanced Level for Cambridge in the whole world.

This year one of its students will again, receive the accolade among other high flying students from different colleges and conventional schools across Zimbabwe.

“We have been able to maintain our standards and the pass rate from the time we opened, something that I can attribute to the intricate knowledge that our staff has on our curricula,” he said.

Mr Koke emphasised that the period he spent as a temporary teacher enabled him to master good concepts crucial in building a tripartite agreement between the parent, student and the school. The school, Mr Koke pointed out has a crucial role to play in ensuring that the student will attain good passes.

“The school has to take a leading role in the education of the pupil, by ensuring that expectations of both the pupil and the parent are met.

“This is done through offering conducive learning environment, good curricula, instill discipline, assess, diagnose and evaluate the student’s performance.

“By and large, the school should offer a wholesome package that meets the needs and aspirations of both the parents and students.

He added that in the absence of an active tripartite agreement, it is difficult for students to attain good results.

“During that time that I was teaching I learnt the importance of a good tripartite agreement. Pupils would struggle to achieve academic excellence because of poor infrastructure, lack of resources and sometimes inadequate moral support from parents, who did not appreciate the importance of education,” he said.

He recalls that after leaving temporary teaching and had enrolled at the Harare Polytechnic College for a Higher National Diploma in Accountancy, Mr Koke was determined to assist students attain good passes, particularly those who were academically challenged.

He resumed teaching, although on part time basis, during the evening and whenever he had time to take on classes with private colleges.

Mr Koke continued with the same zeal up to university, where he graduated with an Honours degree in Accountancy.

By that time, his reputation as a top notch teacher in various subjects particularly in Geography had spread among private colleges in and around Harare, with some requesting him to join them.

The demand for his services had also grown over the years, prompting him to recruit more teachers to assist conduct home tutorials.

“I recall in the early 2000, when I was teaching at Foundation College, I had impressive results for A Level Geography when 40 students from the 120 A-Level students who sat for the subjects attained As’,” he enthused.

Buoyed by the good results, Mr Koke resolved to register a private college.

“It dawned to me that I could turn around the fortunes of students who were not academically gifted but still want to obtain good results,” said Mr Koke.

That decision gave birth to Direct Contact, which was registered as private college in 2004, although catering for the mass market. However his decision to cater for the mass market was short-lived, since most of the students were struggling to pay fees.

In 2006, he closed the mass market and turned his attention on students from private conventional schools who wanted to enroll for holiday lessons. Demand for the services grew, even during 2008, at the height of economic crises, when most parents were struggling to enroll their children in good schools.

Mr Koke’s breakthrough came in 2010, when he found a place, where Direct Contact could operate as a private college.

“When we opened in January 2010, we started with one pupil, who was doing Form Two, but a month later, we had full complement of O Level repeaters for June Cambridge examinations.”

Five months after opening, Direct Contact posted impressive results for the June examinations, prompting Mr Koke to increase his enrolment. Despite having been formally registered Direct Contact, continued to be referred to as “KwaKoke”, two years after opening.

“We began a massive exercise to ensure to ensure that the school had to operate independently from me. It was not easy, but we managed to push the brand on the market, through the examination results.”

Looking back Mr Koke concedes that it has not been a smooth sail.

“We have had to work hard to fend off the stigma normally attached with private colleges, where they are regarded as useless learning institutions, meant for academic misfits.

Mr Koke said financial access remains a challenge in sustaining operations.

However the future looks bright.

Direct Contact has since acquired a piece of land in Mandara, from where the school will now be operating from as a conventional private institution once construction is complete.

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