Simbarashe Choga, 65, retired as a teacher a few years ago to become a local local butcher in Epworth. But now he is back in education. This time as a principal of the primary school he runs out of his shop.
"My teachers keep their records and other materials at my butchery, which operates as our head office because, as you can see, there are no buildings here," said Choga. "We have a total enrolment of 182 pupils from the first to the seventh grades, and the majority of them learn outside."
Most of the houses in Epworth have no running water or electricity and the area is best known for its high levels of crime. Choga insisted that his institution had been registered by the local municipal authority, but said most of the schools offering primary and secondary education were unlicensed, and at the ministerial level even his school was not accredited.
This means that pupils at Choga's school have to sit their grade-seven examinations for entry into high school at other institutions that have been formally licensed by the education ministry.
Choga, who employs mostly untrained teachers, complained that they had to make do with inadequate books and stationery, and urged the government to register his school, "so that people like myself, and many others in Epworth and other parts of the country, can make education accessible to the underprivileged, who are too poor and lack learning facilities."
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