EDUCATION-ZIMBABWE: The Schools Soldier On

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Wilson Johwa

BULAWAYO, Nov 1 2004 (IPS) - Wooden panels in the main hall still list the fading names of outstanding students who attended Milton Junior School in the southern Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo, during the last century.

In the sharpest of ironies, the gold-engraved names include that of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd – better known as the architect of apartheid in neighbouring South Africa. Verwoerd’s family lived in what was then Rhodesia for four years, while his father served in the Dutch Reformed Church.

However, the parents now assembled in the hall for a meeting are not only of a different colour to Verwoerd – but have little time to contemplate his political sins. They are here to approve next year’s budget for the school: a Herculean task.

The government set October as the month by which schools – both public and private – should submit their 2005 budget proposals for approval. The amounts set will have to cover the whole of next year, as the Ministry of Education has indicated it will not entertain requests for supplementary levies.

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate is amongst the highest in the world, however – officially pegged at 252 percent. The continual escalation in prices for goods and services – everything from chalk to fuel – makes projecting financial needs a year ahead akin to gazing in a crystal ball.

Even if their budgets for next year are approved, many schools will have difficulties closing their books for the current year. Milton Junior’s request for a “top-up” budget four months ago was turned down, leaving the school almost 3,000 United States dollars in the red.

“There is no money coming from the government, even for telephones or electricity,” says school principal Patrick Nyoni.

The school has been unable to carry out any improvements or repairs, such as attending to blocked toilets or the once-green sports field. Even worse, it cannot afford to provide its 1,044 pupils with books.

Milton Junior’s proposed budget for next year requires a 2,000 percent increase in levies to 90 U.S. dollars per year. In a country where unemployment is above 70 percent and few of those with a job earn more than 100 U.S. dollars a month, not all parents favour the increase.

According to the 2004 Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme, about 36 percent of Zimbabweans live below the poverty line of one U.S. dollar a day.

While many other schools are experiencing a similar cash crunch, rural institutions and boarding schools generally appear worse off.

“Things are so tough, we don’t even know where we could get the money to get through the year,” says Isiah Dube who administers two high schools on behalf of the Presbytarian Church.

He says that if the two institutions, which are boarding schools, are to maintain minimum standards while remaining affordable, they will have to go back to producing their own food.

“If we were to buy everything, we would never afford to run these schools,” notes Dube. “The price of beef alone has gone up four-fold in the last three months.”

While private schools have in many instances operated without state interference, this situation changed abruptly five months ago.

Over 50 elite private schools were shut down for raising fees by more than 10 percent without state approval. The schools maintained that given runaway inflation (then at over 400 percent), the increase was needed to ward off financial collapse.

But, Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere accused the schools – many of which are favoured by the country’s white minority – of being racist institutions that had raised their levies to keep out blacks. Armed police were stationed outside school gates to bar teachers and pupils from entering.

Brian Raftopoulos of the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies says other factors may have influenced the Education Ministry’s actions, however.

“One theory is that many among the ZANU-PF elite have their children in those schools,” he notes, adding that this would give ruling party officials a direct interest in having fees and levies capped.

In January, fees at the country’s most expensive private school rose by over 70 percent to almost 1,800 U.S. dollars per three-month term.

Although a High Court order upheld the schools’ right to increase fees, government obliged the institutions to sign an undertaking stating they would keep their fees at the official level, or remain closed.

Institutions such as Petra Junior private school attempted to circumvent this development by having parents supplement fees and levies with donations. However, government ruled that this too was illegal.

Zimbabwe’s success in boosting access to education for the country’s black majority after independence from Britain in 1980 has received widespread acclaim.

The UN Children’s Fund says policies on free and compulsory schooling enforced in the 1990s resulted in near universal primary education with gender parity. The literacy rate for 15 to 24-year-olds rose to 98 percent by 2000.

However, the introduction of fees and levies in the 1990s and subsequent political and economic decline undermined these gains. School completion rates that had peaked at 82.6 percent in 1990, declined to 75.1 percent in 2000.

Today, says UNICEF, the education sector is buckling under a number of challenges, including inadequate financing, low enrolment, erratic attendance and high drop-out rates.

Other constraints are an inadequate capacity for planning and management of schools, high rates of HIV/AIDS amongst teachers, pupils, and parents – and low teacher morale.

Indeed, nothing illustrates the depth of Zimbabwe’s education crisis more than the plight of teachers – who are amongst the country’s most eager emigrants. Educators are so badly paid that their earnings fall within the non-taxable bracket.

“It’s unheard of, anywhere (else) in the world. Teachers are in the same grade as gardeners, domestic workers and tree-cutters,” says Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of the Progress Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, which represents a quarter of the country’s 109,000 teachers.