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that life and schooling is going to be different in the capital city.
“What is your name? Where were you learning last year? Why did you come to study here?” his new class and schoolmates ask with awe one after the other.
Some questions reach him in the form of echoes and he turns his head to look at all those who are asking and fails to answer all of them.
He is visibly new to the many students whose number seems incalculable and the figure is beyond a thousand. It can be noted with the new uniform he is donning.
Takudzwa simply tells them his name and answers: “I was a student in Gweru and my father was transferred to Harare.”
The bald-headed headmaster stands on the concrete pulpit in front.
“Good morning school,” he says, before complimenting teachers and old students into the new year and welcoming the “newcomers”.
They all answer at the same time in the form of a vast tumult that sends off the white herons perching in the jacaranda tree nearby.
The headmaster orders everybody to stand at attention so that the national anthem can be sung. A neatly dressed girl heads to the flag post while clutching the colourful national flag with both arms.
Takudzwa clearly notes she is the headgirl and it is boldly written on the red badge on her chest and emblazoned blazer says it all. She ties the rope on the flag while the students join the lead singer in singing the national anthem.
Next to him he sees one boy named Arnold and he is wearing a uniform with a tattered collar. In his feet, he is not wearing grey stockings like fellow students but only shoes which seem not to know shoe polish and have turned brown also because of the mud.
He also sees another boy in the front row whose name he doesn’t know. The boy is donning the khaki shorts whose behind is heavily patched in zigzag style with white strings.
There are also numerous lines comprising girls in navy blue dresses, white stockings and neatly combed and shaven hair.
Announcements pour one after another before the school head reappears on the pulpit and notifies that students who haven’t paid school fees and money for the new school bus to be purchased face expulsion from classes by the end of the week.
“All those with parents who have not paid school fees will be ordered to go home and only return after clearing the arrears. Also they need to pay money for our bus,” he says.
He adds that since it is the new year, it has to start on a new chapter and all students must meet senior teachers afterwards so they can be grouped as in other years.
Takudzwa is told that he will attend school in the afternoons for the next seven days.
He does not understand what that means and he raises his hand. “Sir does it mean I will come to school every day at 2 o’clock?”
A few minutes later some are dismissed and some trail behind class teachers to trees and red-bricked classrooms.
Takudzwa’s class heads to the school grounds after the class teacher tells them they will start lessons the following day.
He joins others in playing the plastic ball which one of the strange fellows whose name he hasn’t mastered takes out from the backpack.
It seems everything is coming in a flash to him and he questions himself.
How does one learn in the afternoon only?
We are so many and isn’t the class going to be very noisy?
This is the order of the day in Harare’s high-density educational institutions (both primary and secondary) which have been characterised by “hot-sitting” or “double-sitting”.
Government schools charge moderately low tuition and levies which are sometimes beyond the reach of poor members of the society. The number of school-going children in high-density residential areas does not tally with the number of schools.
This has created a situation where some students attend classes in the morning and others in the afternoon such that they can share the classrooms and the little few resources at their disposal.
It is a far cry from the affluent minority who send their children to private and often expensive schools.
In a survey conducted at most schools in high-density residential areas where there is “hot-sitting”, school starts at 0730hrs and finishes at 1210hrs before paving way for another class that starts at 1230hrs and ends at 1500hrs.
One teacher who preferred anonymity said their school has 40 classes that study both in the morning and afternoon.
“At our school we have 40 classes with 10 per stream, excluding two science laboratories. The laboratories have run out of chemicals and apparatus for experiments,” he said.
“Nearly all times we will be enrolling students since they can be easily accommodated. And each ‘sitting’ gets a 15-minute break in-between the lessons,” he added.
This, it seems has a negative impact on the education system especially in Harare’s schools and not rural and schools in other provinces such as Midlands.
For decades the Government and school authorities have failed to address the issue thereby focusing on trivial issues.
One parent said most schools are concentrating on buying trucks and buses instead of constructing more classes.
“School development authorities have forgotten their mandate of assisting in improving education. They focus on corruptly buying materials, buses and trucks through tenders they award themselves instead of building more classroom blocks for our children,” she said.
Another concerned parent, Mrs Marriane Magwenzi, said she is concerned and does not know what to do for her children since the educational system in high-density areas is deteriorating.
“I cannot afford sending my kids to boarding school or Group A schools that charge hundreds or thousands of dollars per term or month. To make it worse they are very far hence the need of bus fare which I do not have.
“I have primary and secondary school children and half of their weekday is allocated to playing since they mostly go to school in the afternoon. At times I force them to read in the morning or make them attend private tutorials during the holidays or weekends,” she said.
Mrs Magwenzi also said teachers call for private lessons instead of doing the job in their classes.
“Schoolteachers do nothing when at work and call for weekend and holiday lessons on top of incentives we pay them. I think it is a gimmick where they want to make some more money since the Government is failing to pay them very well,” she said.
It is high time the Government focuses on eradicating the system since most of the precious time in “hot-sitting” schools is allocated to sports and other co-curricular activities.
Construction of more classroom blocks and libraries can be done to curb the decrease in the pass rate in high-density residential schools.
However, it is high time the Government eradicates “hot-sitting” since back-street colleges have sprouted and take advantage and charge exorbitant fees.
According to Zimbabwe School Examinations Council statistics, schools that do not have “hot-sitting” have higher pass rates.