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Lungile Tshuma
AFTER completing their secondary education many students proceed to higher learning institutions with much hope for a brighter future.
Many see advanced education as a breakthrough to good life. A good number of such people come from poor backgrounds, so their parents or guardians would have struggled to pay their school fees which in most rural areas are as little as $30 per term. So the ambitions of such people are justified.
The Government has been taking positive steps in promoting education in the country. For primary and secondary education it introduced the Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam) to assist children from poor families pay their fees. At tertiary education level, the cadetship programme was introduced to help students whose parents or guardians can’t afford to pay their fees. With these policies and more, the country has achieved Africa’s highest literacy rate.
However, on the ground, the situation is not as rosy as the policy says as many pupils and students who are supposed to benefit from both schemes are literally cursing the day they were born.
As of last year more than 55 000 students were on the cadetship programme at different State universities, polytechnics and teachers’ colleges. After the collapse of the loans-and-grants scheme in 2005, the education sector experienced a setback. When the loans-and-grants scheme collapsed, access to education inevitably dropped, as many students could not complete their courses because their parents could not afford to pay their fees and pay for other expenses like accommodation.
As a result of such challenges, the introduction of cadetship scheme in 2010 was meant to pay tuition fees for students deemed unable to finance their own studies. The Government made arrangements with all its institutions of higher learning whereby Treasury would release money directly to the institutions while the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education acted as the facilitator. In return, the beneficiaries of the scheme would be bonded to work in Zimbabwe after college for an equal number of years they received funding.
Treasury last year failed to release $62 million owed to State universities, polytechnics and teachers’ colleges. The Ministry of Higher Education had requested $69 million to finance the programme last year, but only $25 million was allocated in the national budget. Unfortunately, out of the allocated $25 million, the Finance Ministry took away $15 million during the mid-term fiscal review and only $3,5 million was released.
For tertiary students the effect has been huge, as most of them due the Government’s failure to pay their fees through cadetship, education has gone beyond their reach. The $500 fees required depending on one’s course, $80 accommodation per month and at least $30 for groceries per month is not easy to get for many students.
Irresponsible female students, in their efforts to make ends meet, end up falling prey to “sugar daddies” or anyone who could financially assist them.
Some students at Nust who are on cadetship have experienced this. The university has not been accommodative to students on cadetship. The university forces them to pay their tuition fees in full upon registration regardless of how complex the situation is for a student. The situation has forced some students to defer their studies as they would have failed to pay their fees. This is an unfortunate negation of the whole motive behind the cadetship programme — asking a person who has pleaded poverty to somehow find money from somewhere to pay for his or her education.
Zimbabweans value their education. That is why a parent struggles to ensure that his or her child goes to school or to university. When he or she fails, it is not because of irresponsibility, but absolute failure to fund the education of their children.
There is no doubt that the Government is equally committed to the education of its people. It is appreciated that the economy is not performing too well, so some obligations suffer as has happened to Beam and the cadetship programme. However, the Government should and can do more for the education sector, for those on Beam and cadetship. Education is the pillar of the nation; it produces the future leaders of the country. If there is no investment in this critical sector, we would be preparing a disaster ourselves.
The country has, since independence set high standards in terms of investment in education so it is crucial for it to move with the same spirit and raise the bar high through supporting the education sector. The Government should revisit the Beam and cadetship programmes, which the inclusive Government failed to prioritise.
Online Reporter