Coltart to announce fees for new school term

New Zimbabwe.Com
28th April 2009

RAISED fees demanded by most public schools are illegal, Education Minister David Coltart said Tuesday as he prepared to fix new fees limits for the second term which opens on May 5.

Cabinet met on Tuesday to discuss proposals by the National Education Advisory Board on ways to improve Zimbabwe’s primary and secondary education, including fixing affordable fees and establishing a “means test” system for parents who cannot afford the fees.

In March, Coltart set out fees for the first term, with a ceiling of US$150 per term for primary schools and US$280 for secondary education.

But letters sent out by schools ahead of the second term have shown a dramatic rise in fees.
Bulawayo’s Founders High School pegged fees for the second term at US$500 including levies, while Mzingwane High School in Matabeleland South fixed fees at US$360.

Coltart said: “We are announcing new fees shortly and parents should wait for that announcement, and all public schools should be guided accordingly.”

Coltart has recently admitted that a majority of families in the country cannot afford the fees being charged. He recommended that schools should allow pupils to pay in instalments, and where the parents have no income, headmasters have been directed to carry out a “means test” to decide if qualifying students should get a free education.

The entire Zimbabwe civil service receives monthly allowances of US$100, and unions say the fees being charged by schools are way above their members’ earnings.

Coltart gave no indication if the new fees would be reduced, as he forecast in March, or an increase from the last term.

National Education Advisory Board secretary Trudy Stevenson said some schools were smuggling fees increases through levies which are not regulated by the government.

“There seems to be no control over levies, of course it is meant to be the parents that control levy and how it is spent, but many parents don’t exercise their right to have a say in the amount to be paid, and a solution is greater participation by parents to ensure their voices are heard,” she said.