AN O-LEVEL pupil at Arundel School in Harare was recently
denied access to sit for her Cambridge examination after school authorities
claimed she had fees arrears amounting to $44 000 although she had fully paid
the examination and centre fees.
The move by the school has now prompted the girl’s mother,
Mavis Jakarasi to file an urgent chamber application through Justice for
Children, seeking the court’s intervention, arguing that the school had no
authority to prevent her child from sitting for examinations. She cited
trustees of Arundel School as respondents in the matter.
In her founding affidavit, Jakarasi said her daughter had
been a student at the school since the beginning of 2019 and had registered to
sit for her Cambridge final Ordinary Level examinations that are currently
underway.
However, Jakarasi said due to fees being owed to the
school, her daughter was barred from attending lessons since the beginning of
the third term.
“Being a trust school, I do understand and accept that the
respondent has such a right. The problem arose when my child appeared to sit
for her first examination on October 15, 2019, English Paper 2. The respondent
(Arundel) school official, the headmistress Pauline Makoni and her officials
refused to allow the child to sit for her examination,” Jakarasi said, adding
she then approached Justice for Children for assistance and the lawyers issued
a letter of demand for the school to allow the child to sit for her
examinations, but she was still prevented from doing so.
The woman said she was told that the tuition fee had been
raised to $44 000 for the third term and that the amount she owed the school
had equally increased on the day her daughter missed her second exam.
Jakarasi said after paying $18 000, her daughter was then
allowed to sit for her History examination on October 18, 2019, but on Monday
October 21, 2019, she was again barred from writing Mathematics by the
headmistress who demanded that she pays the balance first.
“Though I owe the school in arrear tuition, for the school
to then bar my child from writing examinations that are not property or a
programme of Arundel School, but an independent external examinations body, on
the basis of fees I owe to the school is unacceptable,” Jakarasi said
“Cambridge Examinations is an independent body to which I
made full payment. That payment includes the examination fee and the centre
fee. The child is thus fully paid to use Arundel School as an examination
centre. This fact is independent from the child’s registration at Arundel as a
student. It is for her studentship at Arundel School that the respondents can
bar my child from accessing the school facilities. However, that is not the
case with the Cambridge examinations.
All the school is providing and required to provide, is an
examination centre with the requisite facilities and personnel.”
The matter is pending. Newsday
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