THE Children’s Act Chapter 5.06 considers schools to be places of safety. Schools as registered institutions must uphold safety standards.
It is quite sad to observe that Zimbabwean schools seem not to be providing a sense of security to learners given what has been happening lately.
For example on June 10 this year, seven learners were burnt to death in a kombi in Gweru.
On March 16, 2023 a classroom at Globe and Phoenix Primary School in Kwekwe caved into an illegal underground mining tunnel.
Seventeen pupils aged between 10 and 11 years were injured, one girl seriously. On November 7, 2024 a school bus carrying 19 students from Nyangani High School veered off the road and overturned, killing one student while several others were injured.
As if that was not enough, another misfortune hit Falcon College on March 25, 2026 when a 13-year-old learner drowned after a canoe capsized in a dam.
On June 11 this year, Hartzell Central Primary School had a similar mishap involving two Early Childhood Development learners who drowned in a disused swimming pool.
The foregoing incidents reflect laxity in schools as far as pupils' safety is concerned. This opinion piece argues for regular risk mapping in schools by heads of institutions.
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What does risk mapping entail?
Risk mapping is a process of assessing the school environment with a focus on identifying areas, spaces or situations that can pose danger to learners, workers, volunteers, interns and visitors.
The process of risk mapping goes further than identifying situations that can give rise to danger or abuse by codifying the possible impact of such risks using colours or values for the likelihood of risks.
In terms of colour coding, red would mean fix the problem today, yellow would mean fix soon and green would mean safe. In terms of risk values, every risk would be assessed as low, medium, or high.
Risk mapping or assessment gives an insight into the likelihood of a risk and its perceived impact.
For example, in the case of the Hartzell Primary School, the risk is in the red zone in terms of colour coding and of high value, therefore, needing immediate mitigation.
Every school in Zimbabwe should have a risk map that displays areas that can potentially occasion abuse or danger to everyone in the school.
The risk map should be placed where it is visible to everyone in the school premises, for example, a toilet, the head’s office, or swimming pool. Risk mapping provides early warning signs to decision-makers.
Early warning signs
Risk mapping is important because it provides early warning signs to decision-makers.
For example, an unfenced swimming pool identified as a risk for learners gives decision-makers an opportunity to ensure that security and supervision of that space are provided.
In the case of Hartzell Primary School, the head of the school, members of the school development committees, the education learner welfare department, the responsible authority and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in-toto should not have left an unused swimming pool accessible to learners.
Those who owe a duty of care towards children should employ safeguards through risk mapping and management.
It is a good practice to have safeguarding officers in schools who can work in cahoots with accounting officers to do risk assessment and mitigation.
The school head, in the case of Hartzell, should have acted with diligence, skill and care to prevent the unfortunate incident of the drowning of those two learners.
It was indeed foreseeable that such an accident could happen, and necessary steps should have been taken to avoid it.
The necessary steps would have been to either decommission or secure the pool.
The primary duty of care in this case lies with the head, responsible authority and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.
Let the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education compel the employment of safeguarding officers in both private and public schools so that they can be responsible for risk assessment and mitigation.
Heads of schools may not be everywhere all the time, so they need intellectual sounding boards on issues of pupils' safety.
In the case of Hartzell, arresting the caretaker and supervisor was ill-advised because they did not have independent authority to decommission or secure the pool.
The ultimate responsibility here lies with the head and the institution itself, not just the employees tasked with maintenance.
Risk mapping would have flagged the abandoned pool as a high-impact hazard and risk maps would have made the danger visible to all stakeholders, thereby preventing the tragedy.
To that effect, it is critical to note that resources should have been deployed towards either securing the disused pool or decommissioning it.
In safeguarding, spending is associated with saving because repair is four times more expensive than safeguarding.
In the case of Hartzell, lives were lost, with such losses to the concerned families coming with sentimental damage that defies measurement.
The parents who lost their children through negligence by omission occasioned by primary duty bearers should sue for delictual damages.
Let criminal law sanction and civil law price the damage in this case. This should be done with the end goal of deterrence.
Given the high number of accidents that are happening in schools on a regular basis, it is incumbent upon the government through the relevant deoartments and ministries to consider having safeguarding officers in schools whose mandate would be on child protection and safeguarding.
*Dr Nicholas Aribino is ZIMCARE Trust country director, and former vice-chairperson of Chikurubi Special Prisons Board. He writes here is his personal capacity.
