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Factmore Dzobo
MARY Ngulube, a mother of three, sent her children to school in the hope that education would afford them a better life than hers.
Against all odds, the vegetable vendor struggled to ensure that her daughter attended secondary school.
However, Ngulube’s hopes for a better future for her children were shattered after she failed to raise money to enable the girl to sit her O-level public examinations this year.
Ngulube is not the only one in her predicament. Hundreds of parents each year fail to raise money for their children to sit public examinations.
Public examinations in the country are administered by the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council and a certificate from the body is required for one to get formal employment or to be recruited into tertiary institutions to get professional training.
This year Zimsec is charging $13 for an O-level subject. Pupils normally register for at least eight subjects meaning that one student needs $104 in examination fees.
For A-level, the examination fees is $26 a subject with pupils sitting for at least three subjects. The situation is worse for private candidates who in addition to subject fees have to pay centre fees which can add up to $40 to the final bill.
The cost of examinations in the country has made many to believe that education is now a preserve for the rich.
“The government should revisit both school fees and examination fees. They are too high and we cannot afford them. Some of us are widowed mothers with no reliable sources of income,” said Ngulube.
Early this year, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora announced that the government had removed subsidies on public examinations which used to cushion candidates.
“I have failed to register for my Ordinary Level examinations this year, after being told to first clear last term’s school fees arrears. My mother didn’t have enough money to clear the arrears,” said Buhlebenkosi, a Form Four pupil at Masotsha High School in Bulawayo.
Her mother, a widow, fears for her daughter’s future. She has no other source of income other than selling vegetables in the high density suburbs of the city.
“I couldn’t afford to get the money to clear my daughter’s school fees arrears and at the same time pay for her examination fees. I am worried and it’s painful after struggling to send her to school for all these past four years. Our children are being priced out of school,” her mother lamented.
Education is a basic right for every child and every child should have access to it, as enshrined in the new constitution of Zimbabwe.
The education policy also stipulates that no child shall be sent home over non-payment of fees or levies. This is in support of the “Education for all” policy.
Educationists have described as retrogressive failure by parents to raise examination fees for their children and the barring of pupils to register for public examinations over school fees arrears.
“This is actually a total negation of children’s rights to education as enshrined in the new constitution. It should be the government’s obligation to make sure that children from less-privileged families get education through a government supported social welfare fund. It is disheartening to hear that some children failed to register to sit for their exams,” said a veteran educationist and unionist, Tendai Chikowore.
Chikowore expressed shock over the withdrawal of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who used to assist children from less-privileged families with school fees.
“I have been serving in the education sector for a number of years, but what is shocking me is the withdrawal of some humanitarian organisations that used to assist many impoverished school children with school fees. We used to see many children assisted with school fees in the past few years, but what I don’t understand now and believe is whether this assistance was political or a genuine humanitarian assistance.”
Some called on the government and school authorities to come up with school fees arrears payment plans for children whose parents would have failed to raise the examination fees.
While Zimbabwe has scored highly in investment in education and ensuring that it tops in literacy rate in Africa, the socio-economic challenges of the past decade may have deprived many poor children access to education.
The situation was made worse early this year after donors that used to fund pupils under the Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam) cut funding from $73 million to $15 million, resulting in nearly a million pupils from less privileged families dropping out of school countrywide.
Next year, Zimbabwe and the rest of the world take stock of their success or failures in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight UN-initiated social development objectives that have influenced the global development agenda since 2000.
One of the MDGs enjoins governments and development partners to work to achieve universal access to education by 2015.
Richard Gundani, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Union, said it was sad to hear that some pupils failed to register for final public examinations after their parents or guardians failed to secure examination fees. He said the government should find alternative ways of helping parents in paying their children’s fees.
“Education is the only basic tool that transforms children’s lives. It is the duty of the government to come up with alternative ways of paying examination fees for children from poor families. School authorities can come up with a flexible payment arrangement of those with fees arrears than to ban them from registering for the exams.
“This is a serious issue which will affect children’s future,” said Gundani.
A concerned parent, Thandiwe Moyo, said what some school authorities did was very unfair and insensitive to children’s right to education. She said children from impoverished families should not be priced out of education.
“It is very unfair and insensitive to deny children right to education. Children from less-privileged families should not be allowed to drop out of school. The government should assist them,” said Moyo.
derick.khumalo