We are excited that Zimbabwe through a commitment made by Honourable N.C.G Mathema the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education is now a signatory to the Safe to Learn Campaign to address violence in schools.
We look forward to discussions on how key stakeholders in the Zimbabwean Education sector can support this excellent initiative and commitment.
The MOPSE has committed to 6 key actions, which are:
- Implement and enforce policies that will protect children from all forms of violence in and around schools; including online;
- Strengthen the prevention and responses at the school level through an increased focus on the implementation of our commitments set out in the Education Amendment Act;
- Review our multisectoral policies on child protection in schools, including referral mechanisms to support victims of violence in schools, and working with parents and communities, in order to eliminate child abuse, exploitation, and discrimination; and ensure those who perpetrate are removed as teachers or administrators; and
- Work with all stakeholders in our schools to promote positive discipline, social norms and gender equality, to ensure that schools are safe spaces for teaching and learning;
- Invest our resources effectively to promote safer schools;
- Improve our collection of disaggregated data and monitoring efforts to effectively address violence in schools for both national and global utilisation.
The Safe to learn Campaign Safe to Learn is an initiative dedicated to ending violence in and through schools so children are free to learn, thrive and pursue their dreams. Safe to Learn presents an opportunity to unlock the multiple wins of ending violence in schools, improving learning outcomes, better leveraging investments in education, and raising awareness and change attitudes towards violence against children.
Zimbabwe joins a number of countries to endorse the Safe to Learn’s Call to Action, which sets out in high-level terms what needs to happen to end violence in schools. These countries include Cambodia, El Salvador, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, Jamaica, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, Moldova, Nepal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda, among others.
We hope we will have a chance to discuss the operationalization of these actions in more detail during the Joint Sector Review later in June 2021.