Govt should address educational imbalances

and those from the disadvantaged classes is shockingly wide.
It is obvious that money or the lack thereof speaks. Former Group A schools like David Livingstone and Dudley Hall which are patronised by the offspring of middle level earners have multiple numbers of pupils with four units.
On the other hand rural day schools have the best students coming out with dismal results like 15 and 20 units. Surely, it is impossible for this gap to be attributed to disparity in IQs meaning that it is the margin of access to educational resources that is making all the difference.
After independence the Government made commendable efforts to address the imbalances in the education delivery system which had been instituted in the colonial era.
In a largely successful effort to ensure basic education for all many schools were built in areas that had previously been marginalised. Many rural day secondary schools in existence today were built at this time.
Capacity at teachers’ colleges was increased and with more universities being created there was more qualified personnel to ensure that the quality of education in all schools was considerably high.
As a result the Zimbabwean education system became the envy of many. At one point there was a considerable number of foreign students notably from Botswana coming into the country seeking to take advantage of our high standards.
Sadly, the economic meltdown with its accompanying teacher strikes, go-slows and general lack of resources reversed most of our gains. The quality in most schools plummeted to a nadir previously unseen and even the infrastructure suffered considerably due to lack of maintenance. Only private schools whose patrons could afford to keep up with the twists in the economy remained untouched.
With the dollarisation and stabilisation of the economy many public schools have started to recover, albeit some at a faster rate than others.
Although teachers’ salaries have remained way below the poverty datum line, urban schools in low density areas and boarding schools introduced considerable incentives just like the private schools. This means teachers there are motivated and put in full effort in discharging their duties. Increasingly higher levies agreed on by parents mean that learners in those institutions have access to adequate resources such as books, computers and other learning aids.
With fundraising corridors like civvies’ days, fun days, raffles, year photos, regalia sales, donations and tuckshop operations open to them, well administered urban schools have been able to command reasonable income
Another factor is that the children whose parents are in the higher income brackets have had the advantage of attending extra lessons to cover up the ground lost during the period of turmoil.
Sadly, the same cannot be said about the children in rural and some urban day schools. Except for a few well-wishers helping out in very few places, very little has trickled into their school coffers. With poorly remunerated teachers, terrible infrastructure and scanty resources, the situation there remains dire.
Seeing as the rural and high density urban areas have some of the most disadvantaged children in the country including most of the orphans created by the HIV scourge, it is up to the Government and individuals to now come in and address the imbalances created by the wealth gap.
It is sad to see how some schools and areas that have produced eminent and successful citizens remain forgotten and discarded by those same people. Too many people are not active members of their old schools’ students associations and too many people are not doing anything about investing in the development of their areas of origin. Progress starts with the individual.
The community share trusts schemes that have been started must have a percentage directly set aside for education in the concerned areas. It is impossible to expect a miracle at any given point but such a fund used prudently would ensure the gradual improvement of many schools in poverty-ridden areas.
Minister David Coltart’s Education Transition Fund has helped to bring textbooks to classrooms and hopefully we will see the impact of that programme when next year’s results come out. But again Grade 7 is a course. We cannot expect children who have spent the first six years of their primary education without textbooks to all of a sudden produce better results now that they have access to books. All the same a start has been made and the decline is slowly being reversed.
The current per capita grant of one dollar per learner per year that is being given by the Government is woefully inadequate and not making an impact anywhere.
The state needs to concentrate resources towards the disadvantaged children while letting those parents who can afford to take care of their own. the plight of the rural teacher should also be addressed as a matter of urgency.