The ManicaPost
THE Anglican team of educationists comprising school principals, one education commissioner, the diocesan secretary, school heads, and arch-deacons visited St Noah College in Marange recently to tap skills and wisdom to re-brand their own schools.
The delegation was led by the Anglican schools education secretary, Mr Tendai Mandiringa. The Johanne Masowe St Noah College is perched in a typical rural environment in Bocha under Chief Marange.
The college stands out like a rose in a desert. It prides in state-of-the-art buildings all surrounded by a state-of-the-art pre-cast wall.
A state-of-the-art sports stadium which reminds you of Chinese architectural expertise is under construction and almost complete.
The teachers’ houses remind you of typical town planning closely arranged and as close to each other as peas in a pod. It is a beautiful school in every sense of the word.
How did Johanne Marange establish such a small England in the middle of nowhere? How do they sustain the cost of maintaining such a ‘small university?’
These are some of the questions the high profile Anglican team of educationists and diocesan authorities wanted answered so that they could copy in the process of re-branding their own schools.
This reporter accompanied the delegation. We went. We saw. We came back.
Top on the list of important lessons learnt was the spirit of unity and family the school operates within. There are no factions in the school. Parents donate not only money but needed expertise; plumbing, brick-moulding, painting, brick laying . . . etc without expecting to be paid by the school. They donate every little expertise each church member has.
Everyone responds faithfully and dutifully to one command. Said the tour guide, one Nyaude, “If you are say a teacher here and you happen not to like what is done here and you choose to break our code of conduct, we kindly ask you to move on. If you find moving difficult, we assist you by seeking the Provincial Education Director’s involvement. It is that simple.”
St Noah College is an-all-day College. Perhaps when they decide to run a boarding facility, the Anglican delegation will visit again to learn how easy it will be for them to operate a boarding school with school fees pegged at forty dollars (RTGS) per student.
We saw several projects running; the school garden with tomatoes, butter nuts, and fish almost ready for harvest.
When everything was said and done, we thanked the tour guide and asked him to extend our gratefulness to the school head, his deputy and senior teachers who were very awkwardly all absent when we arrived.
What remained on everyone’s mind was how on earth such a ‘‘small university’’ was constructed on school fees as low as forty dollars (RTGS) at the high school and eight dollars at Primary School; and how for Christ’s sake they maintain what is there and manage to continue to build state-of-the -art infrastructure. St Noah is the only school this reporter knows where a state of the art sports stadium is possible to build. How does St Noah do so much with nothing where Anglican schools fail to do anything with so much? The Anglican schools certainly need the St Noah ‘‘magic’’ to succeed in their re-branding exercise.
Or simply take a leaf from the Johanne Marange school motto: ‘‘With God Success Is Possible.’’
We all, however, went back home thinking wrongly or rightly, “Something doesn’t seem to add up.”
There could be some card we missed to ask for or was not made available in the completion of the success story or jig-saw puzzle.
