Fees cost pupils their final exams

The National – Abu Dhabi
By Thulani Mpofu, Foreign Correspondent
October 18 2009

PLUMTREE, ZIMBABWE. Ruth Nleya prepared for four years to take her final school exams, but her efforts went to waste because her parents were unable to raise the examination fees.

Ruth, 17, the daughter of rural farmers, expected to sit her examinations this December at Bambadzi Secondary School in western Zimbabwe. She now hopes to do so next year, provided her parents manage to pay.

“The examination fees were too high,” she said. “My parents failed to pay the US$80 [Dh294] I needed for eight subjects. So we decided that I don’t write this December but try next year.”

In fact, none of the 58 pupils at her school who were due to take their final examinations this year have been able to afford the exam fees.

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), a professional body of teachers, recently conducted a survey that revealed that about 225,000 pupils – or 75 per cent of the average number of students who sit public examinations countrywide annually – will not take the tests for lack of money.

The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council, a government arm that runs local examinations, charges $10 per subject for Ordinary Level tests, while pupils taking Advanced Level pay $20 per subject. O level and A level certificates, obtainable after writing public tests run by the council, allow their holders to seek jobs or places at professional training colleges or universities.

Announcing the fee structure in August, the council set a deadline of September 11, but extended it to September 25 as it became apparent that few children had registered. It was further extended to last Saturday by David Coltart, the education minister.

“On average an Ordinary Level student writes eight subjects and at Advanced Level they normally write three,” said Raymond Majongwe, president of the PTUZ.

“Multiply $10 by eight, you get $80, which is a lot of money for most parents. Add the tuition fees and the price of books and uniforms you will find that the average family will not [be able to] afford” the cost of the exams.

Zimbabwe is emerging from a decade-long economic meltdown with workers earning on average $154 a month and has an unemployment rate of 94 per cent, according to the latest UN figures.

Mr Majongwe said high fees are worsening an already bad situation in the education sector, which has been affected by a lack of funding and a shortage of teachers, most of whom are leaving the profession in protest against poor salaries and working conditions.

“We seem to be going back to the pre-colonial era, when education was a privilege of the rich elite. The poor are slowly being edged out,” Mr Majongwe said.

In August and September, teachers staged a nationwide strike for higher salaries. They called it off only after the nine-month-old unity government appealed to them to appreciate that it does not have money to increase their monthly salaries from the current $155.

In Bambadzi, a remote village about 100km west of here, Vonolia Ndlovu, deputy chairman of Bambadzi School Development Association, said the majority of people in her community are impoverished farmers.

“There is widespread food insecurity because of frequent droughts,” she said. “So people decided whether to starve and have their children write examinations or just spend the little money they have on food and postpone paying fees to next year.”

The government recognises the enormity of the crisis, Lazarus Dokora, the deputy education minister, told local media recently.

“We are aware of the multiple challenges the parents are facing, but it is a real Catch-22 situation. If we waive the examination fees, the exam body will not be in a position to mark the exams, let alone run them,” he said.

The government says it needs $1 billion to stabilise the education sector, and more to restore it to pre-2000 levels, the year Zimbabwe’s economic crisis started.

Tendai Chikowore, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers Union, said in a speech delivered for World Teachers’ Day on October 9: “Children who fail to sit for their final examinations are denied life opportunities.”

foreign.desk@thenational.ae