Govt withdraws student funding Grants financial institutions to be named Tertiary institutions owed over $27m
Call for tougher action on factionalism
THE Government has phased out the student cadetship programme at tertiary institutions in anticipation of the re-introduction of the student loan facility later this year, officials have said.
The development comes as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which will administer the new student loan has indicated that it will this week carry out an adjudicating process on the proposals that were submitted by financial institutions who will provide the funding.
In a telephone interview on Friday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Deputy Minister Dr Godfrey Gandawa said all tertiary institutions in the country were no longer taking students for cadetship as the Government was expediting the adoption of student loans as a sustainable alternative to the phased out era where Government would assume the parental duty of paying fees.
“We have since phased out the cadetship programme in anticipation of the student loan facility where students will access loans from the banks. All tertiary institutions in the country are no longer accepting applications for cadetship. Those that are on cadetship were recruited under the programme in previous years and they are most likely in their final year,” said Dr Gandawa.
He confirmed that the Government owed tertiary institutions a substantial amount of over $27 million which he said they were working hard to clear. The revelations come in the wake of complaints by tertiary institutions that the varying amounts of money they are owed by Government are stalling various development projects at the country’s institutions of higher learning.
“We currently owe our tertiary institutions a figure of $27 024 723 for students who were on cadetship. In 2014 we received 294 000 applications from students who wanted to be considered for cadetship. Not all of them were successful. We had to go through a rigorous screening exercise from where 43 914 were considered, meaning 250 086 were unsuccessful. In that same year the amount we owed tertiary institutions initially stood at $61 030 345 and we paid $34 005 622 in January this year,” said Dr Gandawa.
He said the good thing was that the figure was no longer accruing since there were no more students on cadetship after the Government announced the return of student loans which the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Central Bank were working to put in place.
Institutions of higher learning such as National University of Science and Technology (Nust), University of Zimbabwe (UZ), Midlands State University (MSU), Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) and many other universities and colleges have been complaining over the Government’s failure to meet its assumed parental obligation of paying for the students on cadetship.
Some of the institutions at one time threatened to defy the Government directive not to exclude from lectures students that were on the cadetship facility saying sending them home was the only way of making sure Government would pay.
Their argument was that failure by Government to pay the fees was burdening them and stalling progress at campuses as well as making them fail to meet other financial obligations such as paying for equipment and for other staff that was not paid by Government.
Dr Gandawa, however, said they were engaging the Treasury with a view to clear the debt owed to tertiary institutions and start on the loan facility.
“You may be aware that under the cadetship we would bond the student for three years. But since 2013 we have allowed students to buy out their bonding period and be given their certificates after the realisation that we were failing to give them employment as Government had frozen recruitment.
“We hope the loan facility will be more flexible and give students the latitude to exercise some financial freedom that they did not have under cadetship. The scheme will be taken care of by the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank that will give the money to various financial institutions for disbursement to the students,” said Dr Gandawa.
He said one of the banks to be used for the loan facility was CBZ while other financial institutions would be announced as the programme was rolled out as and when the requisite amount was available.
RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya said they have received submissions after their call for proposals from financial institutions for the implementation and administration of the educational loan facility and they would be adjudicating them this week.
“We shall be adjudicating the submissions to the calls for proposals whose deadline was 19 May this week,” he said.
The adjudication process is expected to see the RBZ naming the financial institutions that would be tasked with implementing and administering the student loan facility. FORMER liberation movements in southern Africa have identified factionalism as their biggest enemy and are proposing that they should all establish radio stations and newspapers that will inculcate a revolutionary ideology among the populace.
The liberation movements are also proposing tough disciplinary actions against those perpetrating factionalism. In addition, the liberation movements are proposing robust ideological schooling for their members and fully exploiting new technologies to engender social cohesion and responsible information sharing. These proposals were adopted by secretaries-generals of former liberation movements at their annual indaba in Angola last week, and now await ratification.
The meeting identified factionalism as “the Number One threat” to revolutionary parties, and resolved to counteract the scourge with stringent disciplinary action and ideological schooling. The ruling former liberation movements in Southern Africa include Zanu-PF, the African National Congress (South Africa), Frelimo (Mozambique), Swapo (Namibia), MPLA (Angola) and Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Tanzania). Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration Dr Ignatius Chombo who was part of the interface told our Harare Bureau that the secretaries-generals would table the proposals before their superiors. He said, “The secretaries-general made the following recommendations:
‘1. That former liberation movements institute tough disciplinary measures along with strong ideological grounding under the auspices of political party ideological schools and national youth service. 2. That former liberation movements should apply innovative media and information strategies which make full use of available technological advancements. 3. That former liberation movements should institute measures to eliminate the use of money or other material enticements in influencing outcomes of internal electoral processes. 4. That former liberation movements carry out focused political orientation programmes targeting youths — both members and non-members — to inculcate correct ideologies and a sense of belonging. 5. That former liberation movements create ways and mechanisms to share ideas with each other.’”
The meeting also recommended: “6. That former liberation movements establish daily newspapers, radio stations and establish a meaningful presence on the Internet. 7. That former liberation movements should study new weather patterns in order to align with agricultural seasons. 8. That former liberation movements should institute joint and individual measures to eliminate corruption. 9. That former liberation movements should hold workshops to share experiences, strategies on sustainable economic growth and improve our countries.”
Dr Chombo said the proposals were informed by similar workshops held in Mozambique in November 2015 and Victoria Falls in May 2016. The Victoria Falls gathering resolved to address factionalism, lack of patriotism, foreign-backed organisations that work with opposition parties, external interference in electoral processes and “foreign interference using hard and soft power for regime change”.
Dr Chombo said, “We met in Victoria Falls in order to deliberate, and Zanu-PF presided over proceedings. The workshop agreed that regime change is primarily the most urgent and common threat governing former liberation movements face for now and the foreseeable future. The Victoria Falls report captured the salient points of the deliberations and recommendations of the meeting. The workshop also agreed with the Russian and Chinese characterisation of regime change as the tool of choice for overthrowing legitimate political authority by provoking internal instability and conflict against governments
that are
considered inconvenient to their interests, replacing them with pliant puppets regimes that then pander to their interests.
“According to research and intelligence analysis that informed presentations of former liberation movements, Western interests in Southern Africa seek to establish military domination, including military bases within the region as an option for rapid escalation to hard power where soft power would have failed in pursuit of regime change.”
He went on: “The West want unfettered access and control to Southern Africa’s 200 million-strong population, 10 million square-metre land, strategic east-west route, vastly diverse and unique mineral resources and vast natural resource endowment, agricultural potential that is second to none in the world, high quality human capital and unparalleled friendly climatic and weather conditions. This puts them at variance and on a collision course with the resource nationalisation being pursued by Zanu-PF through the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme; the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Progamme and other social models that are being pursued by other former liberation movements.”