The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education says Zimbabwe fully recognises the social and economic value of educating the girl child, with targeted interventions aimed at keeping vulnerable girls in school and addressing long-standing barriers such as poverty, long distances to school, early marriages and social neglect. Responding to concerns raised during a public dialogue on the Delivery of Education Services organised by Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) in Bulawayo on Thursday, where panellist Jacqueline Ndlovu of the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development (WILD) said “girls bear the brunt of education inequality,” the ministry claimed concrete measures were already in place to close the gap. Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Director of Communications and Advocacy, Taungana Ndoro, said the ministry’s commitment to girls’ education was reflected not only in policy, but also in symbolism, programming and community-based interventions designed to protect girls at risk of dropping out of school.
“I am proud to say that the head office of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has changed its name from Ambassador House to Queen Lozikeyi House,” Ndoro said. “So you don’t go looking for the ministry at Ambassador House anymore, you go to Queen Lozikeyi House.” Queen Lozikeyi Dlodlo was one of the most influential queens in pre-colonial Zimbabwe and the name change, Ndoro said, was deliberate. “Queen Lozikeyi was one of the most powerful queens in this land.
What does that mean? It means we are empowering the matriarch,” he said. “We start from there.
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Our head office is named after a woman, a queen.” Beyond symbolism, Ndoro said the ministry has rolled out practical strategies to address the high dropout rates among girls, particularly in rural areas where long walking distances, household responsibilities and economic hardship make schooling difficult. One of these interventions is the Early Warning System, a programme designed to identify learners who are most at risk of dropping out of school. “The early warning system is where we go in as a ministry to try and identify children who are most at risk of dropping out of school and those that are most at risk are girls,” Ndoro said. Ndoro said many girls in rural Zimbabwe walk between 10 and 15 kilometres to school, each way, a burden that significantly undermines their academic performance and safety.
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