‘Mr E’ finds his feet in Australia

“I get asked that so many times,” he says.

The answer to how the 42-year-old Zimbabwe-born mathematics teacher ended up at Greater Shepparton Secondary College owes a little to destiny.

Enock looked to Australia as offering a more prosperous future for his wife, Praise, and especially their daughters, Jedidiah, 14, and Elora, 4.

The couple also wanted to raise children in the kind of open space Enock enjoyed as a child.

The family were last living and working in Cape Town, a crowded South African city of four million, so when the opportunity to emigrate to Australia came, they were seeking a more rural environment.

“That’s the reason we didn’t go to Melbourne — it was too big,” Enock said.

He nominated five regional Victorian schools for his visa application.

Shepparton wasn’t his first or even second choice.

“But when Jedidiah began looking online, she told us, ‘I like this school’,” Enock said.

“I have learned from when my daughter was a young age to listen to her. She has very good instincts.”

The family packed up in December 2023 and settled in Shepparton, with Enock’s Australian teaching career beginning at GSSC in the 2024 school year.

“The move has been a massive shock to my system, on many different levels,” he said.

Enock said the sun set in the “wrong” place, Australian birds sounded nothing like anything he had heard before, and his diet was different.

“It took me six months before my brain registered that I was in Shepparton,” Enock said.

“But the biggest change was with work — that was a massive culture shock.”

In Africa, Enock was used to commanding respect from the moment he entered a classroom simply because he was a school teacher.

“How we define respect is different. I wasn’t used to having to work to earn respect,” he said.

He began to question his abilities as a maths instructor, but it was the Australian teachers around him who provided the teamwork to adjust to school in a new country.

“There are genuine team dynamics here that are well managed,” Enock said.

“It was my colleagues’ support as mentors that helped me adjust to a different environment.”

Enock, or “Mr E” as he is known at the college, said he spent a lot of time socialising with students between classes and getting to know them as individuals.

“Some are yearning for role models, often male role models,” he said.

“In class, you have to be willing to accept different ways of doing things and be able to set clear expectations and boundaries for students.

“I say to the students, ‘If we respect those boundaries, then we can have fun’.”

GSSC assistant principal Steve Bolton helped the Chakabuda family settle into Shepparton and said Enock was highly valued by staff, while students were keen to have him as their maths teacher.

“The kids just love him,” Steve said.

Part of Steve’s portfolio is helping with recruitment, and he is seeing a gradual diversification of GSSC with teachers from overseas.

“Our students and community are very diverse, so to see this reflected in our workforce is really positive,” he said.

Enock and his family are here to stay.

They’ve come to appreciate Shepparton and its diversity, and Enock noted this was even reflected at home.

“We have three English accents in our house,” he said with a laugh.

“My wife and I have a Zimbabwe accent, my eldest daughter a South African accent, and my youngest has an Australian accent.”