Pupils to pay building levy for teachers houses

Bulawayo Bureau
THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education will next year introduce a building levy on school pupils to raise funds for the construction of teachers’ houses. In an interview with our Bulawayo Bureau last week, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora said Government was prioritising teachers’ accommodation.

“We have a huge deficit of infrastructure for schools and that includes teachers’ houses. In 2013, we produced an analysis which we submitted to Cabinet to say 2 056 schools should be constructed but each time we say schools — whether urban or rural — we must include school teachers’ houses,” he said.

“We must engage municipalities so that stands are allocated for teachers’ houses. We don’t want to fail to transfer teachers because of lack of accommodation, because that will be failing to focus on the mandate of the ministry. We will simply be saying there is no housing hence you have to do with the history teacher teaching Mathematics. This is an anomaly we are correcting,” Dr Dokora said.
The Minister said his office had sought Cabinet nod for joint venture partnerships with the private sector.

The ministry is projecting that US$120 million will be raised yearly by levying the four million pupils at learning institutions countrywide.
Authorities are yet to determine the sum each pupil will contribute.

This money will repay building loans while addressing Zimbabwe’s 2 056-school deficit.
Construction will be on a build-operate-transfer arrangement, with Government collecting a percentage of school development levies.
The number of schools almost doubled between 1980 and 1985 — from 2 401 to 4 324 — and primary school enrolment reached 2 460 323 in 2001. Secondary school enrolment leapt from 66 215 in 1979 to over 800 000 by 1999.

As of 2013, Zimbabwe had 8 149 primary and secondary schools.
Dr Caiphas Nziramasanga, an educationist who headed the 1999 Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training said, “It is absolutely necessary for Government to provide decent and modern accommodation fit for the 21st century, especially in rural areas. Teachers need to be respected because the teaching profession is a noble one. Teachers cannot be respected if they come from shacks.
“A good house with decent lighting can enable the teacher to plan better for the next day’s work,”

Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association chief executive officer Mr Sifiso Ndlovu said provision of decent housing will restore teachers’ dignity.
“This idea is important as qualified teachers will be retained especially in rural areas which have been previously shunned. There cannot be schools without accommodation.

“What remains to be answered is the funding matrix which is not clear. Private capital is a double edged sword. We are literally weakening the Government in the provision of education; it is a slow way into privatisation,” he said.

Dr Dokora said he was looking at companies which will give sufficient space — three to five years grace period and between 15 to 30 years repayment period.

“The levy regime which we are developing will ensure that every child accessing education as long as it is primary and secondary, must contribute to a building fund. Whether you are in a non-formal education institution or full-time institution, a certain percent of levy must go towards a building fund,” he said.

He added that the building fund will be withdrawn annually to pay for the infrastructure that will be built through joint venture partnerships.
Dr Dokora said some schools such as Harare High School in Mbare were recording a 96 percent levy collection rate and all schools should strive to do the same.

“If Harare High can do it then why can’t others? It all boils down to transparency in the school system and good rapport between the parents and the school. So we can collect the set levies to develop schools,” he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Dokora said Government has also set aside US$4 million for teachers’ capacity development programme.
“Government has set aside $4 million for teachers to study degrees in science, technology and vocational training as part of the requirement of the new curriculum. We want to pay for them and we actually want many to benefit. At the moment we have 2 500 that have enrolled,” he said.
“Not anybody can be a teacher. It is tantamount to deploying an untrained nurse into a hospital ward to inject penicillin. They might not know what it is. We have been busy taking people who have no idea what teaching is, no pedagogy.

“If you have no training you must covert quickly to become a student under one of the colleges or universities in order for you to subsist in your space.

‘‘We cannot expend so much energy developing, consulting and consolidating the new curriculum and then hand it to someone who is qualified in archaeology. Education is no easy walk.”