: In Zimbabwean rural schools, drug abuse is observed to be on the increase trend. It is in this context that this paper delved into experiences that are encountered by vulnerable learners abusing drug in rural schools. Accordingly, it targeted at how this social phobic has become entrenched in learners’ way of being and the plausible antidotes to this drawback. In this regard, a framework derived from social constructionist and symbolic interactionist standpoints provided the lens through which the researchers perceived the issue under investigation. The researchers used literature review in the generation and analysis of learners’ lived experiences with regards to the issue under study from different sources. The researchers used the narration of information from commissioned reports, newspaper articles and empirical findings. From consulted sources, the researchers noted that there is widespread drug abuse in most rural schools through the influence of the institution linked dynamics, age issues, life stress, peer group pressure, obtainability of ready money and ease of access to drugs. With respect to these findings, the researchers concluded that drug abuse by learners in rural schools in Zimbabwe was from literature perspective mostly due to multi-pronged influences. Hence the researchers recommended that key interested parties such as Government, Non- Governmental Organizations, parents, teachers and policymakers should consistently implement and monitor strategies such as peer counselling to mitigate the drug abuse among rural learners.

During COVID- 19, in Zimbabwe4 959 teenagers fell pregnant and 1 774 adolescents were married between January and February 2021. I observed that, there are no contemporary studies in Zimbabwe that focuses on the effectiveness of WhatsApp dealing with grade 7 pregnant rural learners’ issues during COVID19 era. The aim of this paper is to explore the effectiveness of WhatsApp platform as a critical tool to mitigate early learners’ pregnancies in Zimbabwean rural secondary schools during COVID-19 era. Ubuntu / Unhu theoretical framework couched this article. Interpretivism paradigm and a case study were used in this article. Purposive sampling technique was utilized to select fifteen participants and data from focus group were analysed through Thematic Analysis. The paper found that, WhatsApp message is effective in mitigating early pregnancies among adolescent learners in rural schools. It recommended that, internet service providers should charge lower WhatsApp data costs to help disadvantaged rural learners to access to internet. Consequently, there will be few or no early pregnancies among rural female learners in rural schools.

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The victims of the Tokwe-Mukosi disaster-induced displacements in Zimbabwe were relocated to Chingwizi, Chisase and Masangula. This qualitative article explores the safety of learners in Tokwe-Mukosi disaster-induced displacement schools. The safety of learners in schools influences the education’s agenda. Most of the studies on the safety of learners focus on rural and urban schools at the expense of schools located in disaster-induced displacement sites. This article seeks to explore learners’ safety in disaster-induced displacement schools in Zimbabwe. The 2013 Zimbabwe Constitution and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Act 1987 (Section 25:04) emphasise the importance of learners and teachers’ safety. The critical emancipatory research (CER) was used as a theoretical framework in this article. The participants responded to the research question: Are school authorities ensuring safety in disaster-induced displacement relocation site schools, Tokwe Mukosi? Data were generated through photovoice. Participatory action research was used as a research methodology with 15 participants being purposively selected. This article found that learners were not safe in the schools located in disaster-induced displacement areas in Tokwe-Mukosi. To mitigate safety problems, participants recommended that the government and other stakeholders should collectively build a safe learning environment.

This article explored the perceptions of lecturers on integration of gender equality and language diversity in Zimbabwe University teacher education curricula through the qualitative phenomenological design. Out of the population of forty lecturers from one State University and one church owned university in Masvingo Province, nine lecturers from the Department s of Educational Psychology, Educational Sociology and Special Needs Education were picked to participate in this study through Focus Group Discussion which was analyzed through the thematic approach. The study concluded that the challenges that face gender equality include lack of qualified lecturers to teach gender studies in universities, gender studies being elective at universities and lack of scholarly materials that deal with gender issues. These challenges negatively affect the goals of gender equality. The use of a variety of languages helps students and lecturers to socialize. However, some of the challenges that affect the effective use of a variety of languages as instruments of teaching and learning include inability of teachers to master and use all students’ languages, the lack of university course textbooks in various languages and lack of reading materials that are in vernacular languages. The study recommends that lecturers should be trained in gender equality issues through staff development programs periodically. The compulsory teaching and learning of gender studies will equip students with relevant knowledge of gender equality. Institutions of higher learning should have clear and deliberate policies of promoting women to positions of authority as a way for women empowerment. Finally, scholars should write literature in vernacular languages to enhance the use of multiple languages in teaching and learning in Zimbabwe.