Government of Zimbabwe rolls out programme to locate and return to class pupils who abandoned school in 2025
The Government of Zimbabwe has rolled out a programme to locate and return to class pupils who abandoned school in 2025, following the reporting of 39,736 learner dropouts that year. Of these, 13,032 were at the primary level and 26,704 at the secondary level. Poverty, early marriages, teenage pregnancy and child labour were cited as the main drivers of learner dropout. At the primary level, 116-p
The Government of Zimbabwe has rolled out a programme to locate and return to class pupils who abandoned school in 2025. A total of 39,736 learners dropped out that year, with 13,032 at the primary level and 26,704 at the secondary level. Poverty, early marriages, teenage pregnancy and child labour were cited as the main drivers of learner dropout. At the primary level, 116 pupils left school after getting married and 102 left due to pregnancy. Additionally, 138 learners with disabilities discontinued their studies in 2025, with numbers almost evenly split between boys and girls. Ministry spokesperson Taungana Ndoro stated that the government is treating the issue of learner dropout as a priority, that every learner who exits the education system prematurely is a setback, and that the ministry views the EMIS report with seriousness.
This account was written only from facts that survived Augur's
corroboration pass — 11 corroborated across opposed news blocs,
0 contested (attributed to both sides), 0
single-source (attributed). Nothing was added; no significance was inferred.
Model Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.
See the evidence & the verbatim quotes →