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Schools in Zimbabwe opened earlier this week and that statement alone opens the floodgates on an emotional subject. Ask any parent and pupil and you will get the very definition of distress.
I listened to a news story on Star FM about parents who were upset that their children were being turned away for not having paid fees. The crisis seems to affect those with kids at boarding schools more.
Boarding school pupils were not being allowed onto the buses that were supposed to transport them to their schools in “bundusburg,” unless they produced proof that they had paid fees in full.
The parents interviewed were passing the buck to banks that were limiting withdrawals and the economy.
Yet these parents had the opportunity to make prior arrangements for the necessary withdrawals in good time. Unless of course, they are broke.
The schools, on the other hand, argue that it would be unfair for these pupils to be allowed into boarding facilities while their parents raise the fees.
Whose food would they consume in the meantime?
If they failed to raise the fees during the holidays, what guarantee is there that they will be able to raise it before end of term? All these are questions that need urgent answers.
Parents of pupils who have paid are far from compassionate. They say that if those parents who have not paid were having problems raising fees, then they should have transferred them to cheaper ones. And there are many of them.
The argument that particular schools produce excellent results holds little water given that schools like Maboleni can produce a broadcaster, doctor or a civil engineer for that matter.
Authorities advise both schools and parents to stop traumatising innocent pupils in their fee wars. On the one hand, you have schools that will embarrass pupils for the inadequacies or outright intransigence of their parents.
Stories abound of rude school administrators who dress down pupils for not having paid fees. Often to the point of causing severe psychological trauma.
Parents, on their part, should refrain from pushing their children to school when they have not paid a single dollar. It’s like using them as human shields to buy time. It’s not fair on the kids, and the schools.
For the pupils, going back to school holds a curious mix of emotions. While they anticipate learning new things, meeting new teachers and friends, they also dread the horror that awaits them.
The regimental nature of Zimbabwe’s school system carries with it a sadism only duplicated in a prison. The ‘uniform crackdown’ on the first day of term has become a common ritual.
The strict dress code is a sad reflection of a generation gap between teachers and pupils. I know because I have been there.
It’s a tetchy issue, particularly in ‘girls only’ schools where pupils believe they are being persecuted by aging teachers who envy their youthfulness.
That is the impression I got when I was a senior master years ago.
Lady teachers would bring sobbing female pupils into my office demanding they be disciplined for being rude.
The rudeness would be from the fact that the said pupils would have refused to cut their hair (often permed) or to lower the hem of skirts that revealed more than they should.
From a male stand-point I obviously saw no problem with how the pupil looked. Yet from the teacher’s, the pupil’s appearance deserved strong public censure. That was until the appointment of a female senior teacher saved me from the troubles.
For some reason, school heads equated improper dressing at schools to underperformance.
I found that ridiculous, even now, 16 years after I left the profession. Worse was the teacher’s dress code that was re-imposed when I started teaching.
Not only was it colonial, it was downright repressive. Ask anyone that I taught, a sharp dresser I was, but it was a result of me exercising the freedom of expression (through fashion) rather than regulation.
If a teacher chose to look like a tree, who were we to deny him or her the satisfaction?
The issue of appearance reached explosive proportions down south recently, when pupils at a girls’ high school went ballistic over school rules regarding their ‘unruly’ African hair.
The protest opened a can of worms about racism at the school that had been kept under wraps.
No issue beats the emotions surrounding those of diet at boarding. This is where the comparison of school and prison comes in.
At my alma mater, Fletcher high school, we rioted twice over issues of food in the early 80s.
And yet the school boasted of the most cosmopolitan menus around. It was over samp which we derogatively dubbed ‘bullets.’
If pupils out there think that this article comes to their defence on a number of critical issues, they should stop celebrating. The reality is that we all went through this and it will not change very soon.
The reason being that education authorities at the very top are the result of a career conveyor belt that retains rather than change the status quo.
The position of education authorities is illustrated by the first letter that I wrote to my mother from boarding school.
I warned her not to expect too much of my performance, because we had “too many subjects to learn.”
She responded, “I can assure you will get out of all this alive. I did, otherwise you wouldn’t be around.” That shut me up for the rest of high school.
On a lighter note, imagine a teacher marking this. The comment would read something like this: “This article is all over the place.
You really don’t know what you want to write about. If you are attacking, do so. If you are defending, ditto.
Get your head screwed on straight. Otherwise a reasonable treatment of the subject matter. Whatever it is.” (See Me!!)
Online Reporter