School system needs full support from everyone

AHIGH-PRIORITY target of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is that all children of school-going age should be in school, and that all Zimbabwean children should be able to progress through the 12 years of basic education from early childhood development to Form Four without interruption.

The present Minister, Dr Torerayi Moyo, has certainly made this a centrepiece of his own clear-sighted policy, as he ensures that the public sector schools do not act against the children of parents who do not pay fees on time.

He draws a very clear distinction between the children, who must be able to attend school, and parents who have the contractual obligation to pay fees.

When it comes to these delinquent parents and guardians, he removes the protection he gives their children.

Schools are encouraged to take action against the parents, although forbidden to do so against children, starting with serious discussions and if all else fails handing the parents over to debt collectors, although being open to payment plans and the like.

Fees in the public sector cannot be a major surprise to any parent or guardian. They are set well in advance, and these days are laid down in US dollars so that they need not vary although payment can, and for most parents usually is, made in local currency at the prevailing exchange rate on the day of payment. But every parent and guardian knows how much needs to be paid by the start of every term.

If there is a problem it seems sensible that the parent or guardian will see the school in time, explain matters and negotiate the needed payment plan and then stick to it. To just do nothing helps no one.

It is easy to sympathise with schools who do not receive their fee income on time.

While the teaching staff in the public sector school system are civil servants, and so employed and assigned by the central Government at no extra expense to the school, many other basic necessities, from soap for the bathrooms upwards, have to come out of fee income.

There are variations in the fee structure between rural schools, high-density suburban schools and low-density suburban schools.

This was inherited from a pre-independence structure, but still makes a lot of sense, at least until the present development programmes for farmers and the very poor bear more fruit.

The modest sums in the Ministry budget left after the salaries bill will be geared more to the lower-fee schools to balance out the differences.

But we do note that the retreat from strict adherence to zoning in urban areas, and the major transformation of the rural economy through the conversion of subsistence farmers to small-scale commercial farmers, is rapidly blurring the edges of the inherited division of schools, and we are moving towards a time when there should be very little difference left.

One very important intervention in the whole financing system is BEAM, the programme to ensure that children of the poorest families can attend school.

This year 1,5 million children will be assisted, a huge number, and that programme now seems to be able to cope with many children and families from the lowest rungs on the ladder.

This in turn should mean that parents who are not paying fees are on higher rungs, so could pay fees and therefore should be paying.

There is a policy that as Government finances rise, schools in the public sector should be free, starting with the primary schools. We are not there yet, but the BEAM programme shows the way forward.

We believe that as more money becomes available the first stage should be extending BEAM until we reach a point where with a vast majority of schoolchildren on BEAM, we can take the final step for free and thus compulsory schooling.

Meanwhile, it is important that the annual budgets continually upgrade this assistance programme, and make sure that no child is left behind because their parents are destitute or, regrettably, that their parents simply do not care enough.

It is a tricky point as to how to assign budget funds to education, whether to increase the number of children with fees from BEAM, or to improve the whole system without raising fees.

One way round the problem might be to cease having BEAM as an all or nothing programme, and start using at least part of the BEAM funds to pay a portion of the fees for some of the beneficiaries so that the money can help more children and, at the same time, blur the dividing line between those who need full support and those whose parents have to pay the lot.

The Second Republic, besides budgeting a lot more money for BEAM, is also via its devolution agenda seeing gaps in the physical school system being filled.

Second only to the new clinics in rural areas are the new primary schools. Many communities do not want small children to walk long distances, so there is continual pressure to have at least the primary system consist of a lot more small schools more closely spaced.

Even here, in areas where population densities are fairly low, this can mean that even the most basic 8-classroom school will not fill all places, but we have to be practical.

There is also a need to expand the physical system in some urban areas, especially in those new partially-planned and unplanned suburbs that the land barons created.

The regularisation process and the environmental protections seem to have left some land available for schools. It is common in older suburbs for a school to have its buildings on proper building land, but sports and other areas on what amount to wetlands.

Dr Moyo has also noted the rise in the number of private schools. He is not opposed to the private schools, but he is insisting that they are registered and that they follow the basic rules.

All schools in Zimbabwe have to follow the core curriculum, set by the Ministry, although they can add other subjects.

They all have to have teachers with at least the minimum qualifications, and their buildings have to conform to some fairly basic regulations as to space for each pupil, the provision of bathrooms and the like.

We agree with Dr Moyo that insisting on the basic physical, safety, health and education standards must be done, and that these regulations must be enforced.

Parents can then at least make informed choices, and the con artists who hover on the edges of society can be kept out of education.

At independence the new Government made a huge commitment to expand the education system, and largely managed this in a surprisingly few years.

The work, of course, is always in progress as we all want something better all the time, as we should.

This is why there will never be a day when a Government can announce that we have perfect education, and, as all parents need to realise, that we will never have a day when parents can just sit back and do nothing.

We all need to keep pushing forward, together, to ensure our schools get better all the time.