Epworth Methodist Academy is a registered academic college registered in 2012 and is located in Epworth, Harare in Zimbabwe. The school is registered with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary education, which helps to regulate the operations of the school through its policies. The school is a project of Epworth Methodist circuit. The vision when the school was established was to assist both Epworth community and Epworth Methodist circuit.
To Epworth community the vision is to assist young people acquire education with the minimum financial resource afforded by most families in Epworth. Most of the children in Epworth community are very vulnerable as most are parented by single parent, who are usually engaged in non-formal jobs such as street vending. Some families are also child headed which usually led to a lot of school drop outs as well as drug and substance abuse and in some cases prostitution of school going age or early child marriages. With that background, the Epworth Methodist church thought helping this community by offering academic education under strict Christian values and morals would help build a better future life for these young learners
To the Methodist Church in Epworth the vision was to assist congregants financially in church mission work by removing the mentality of relying solely on offerings. However this has not been achieved as was expected due to low proceeds from the project though the school tries to assist the sustenance of the church. Most of the children do not afford to pay the termly fees as is expected due to financial challenges which then hinders the school to fulfil some of its goals.
Leaners Number Non paying
Boys 143
Girls 231 5
Total 371 5
Teaching staff 8
Non-Teaching staff 3
Security officers 2
The school’s teacher to student ratio is currently 1:50. The school has 8 teaching staff which is not an adequate number as compared to the number of students, however this is due to financial constraints which does not allow recruitment of more teachers.
The school participants in many academic, sports and cultural activities with other schools in the same community and other Methodist schools in Zimbabwe. As much as the school have a lot of talented students in different disciplines, the school rely on transport hiring which make it difficult to attend all the activities due to hiring costs attached
The 8 classrooms available are not adequate to accommodate properly the 376 learners resulting in the school management allocating more than 50 students in some classrooms. The interior of most classrooms needs tiling to reduce dust, re-plastering, repainting as well as installation of ceiling which helps reduce noise from other classrooms. There is need for another ablution block for both boys and girls. On the girls ablution side there is need of an incinerator for disposal of their used sanitary wear which currently is not available.
The school management is facing some challenges with the other part of its boundaries that is open and needs to be secured for the purpose of security.
1. Re-Plastering of walls inside classrooms
2. Tiling of classrooms
3. Erecting a security fence/ durawall for the boundaries
4. Building of additional toilets and additional classrooms.
5. Securing a Commuter Minibus
6. To buy equipment for Practical/Technical subjects and Vocational Subjects like baking, agriculture, building and welding