Sunday News
7 February 2010
Sunday News Reporters
Bulawayo City Councillors have said the rot in the education sector must be nipped in the bud and have called for the arrest of school heads reportedly barring students from attending lessons due to non-payment of tuition fees and levies, Sunday News can reveal.
Schools in Bulawayo have since the beginning of the school term sent away all students who have not fully paid school fees, a move that has been condemned by both Government and parents.
Debating at a full council meeting held at the council chambers last Wednesday, BCC councillors, condemned the move by school authorities, saying the school heads were proving to be impossible and their actions were against both council and Government directives.
The councillors said the school heads should always bear in mind that they were council and Government employees meant to operate as guided by the law.
Last year, 97 school heads from around the country were arrested for defying the Government directive not to bar students from attending lessons because of failure to pay school fees and levies.
Councillor for Ward 11 who is also the chairman of the finance and development committee, Nduna Dladla, said his committee was going to ensure that all heads found barring students from attending lessons at all council run schools would be disciplined for defying the local authority’s directive.
“We are going to ensure that normalcy returns to our schools. What the (school) heads are doing is wrong and illegal. It should not be allowed to continue,’’ he said.
Another councillor said the heads were operating above the parameters of council and it should immediately regain control over its schools.
“Council schools are sending children away and I do not remember us giving such a directive. This means what they are doing is illegal and council should thus descend on these illegal activities,’’ said the deputy mayor, Clr Amen Mpofu.
The deputy mayor said while they appreciated that children were supposed to pay their school fees it was not proper for them to be barred from attending lessons.
He said this gave the council a bad image and put them at loggerheads with the residents.
The councillors have also condemned the payment of teacher incentives saying this further burdened the already troubled parents.
“Council schools should only charge tuition fees and levies, not other charges that are being levied as at the end of the day schools do not benefit from such charges,’’ read part of the latest council minutes.
In an interview last week, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, condemned the move taken by school heads and urged them to desist from defying the ministry’s policies.
“School heads should desist from taking the law into their own hands. They have no right whatsoever to turn away students as I have always said,’’ said Senator Coltart.
Parents have also condemned the move by the schools to turn away students for failure to pay school fees and teacher incentives.
Last week, students were seen moving out of schools in hordes after being chased from some of the schools.
The move by school heads has prompted parents to call for the Ministry to reintroduce supervision of schools rather than the present scenario where school heads did as they pleased.
Parents said what school heads were doing was detrimental to the children’s future.
“The ministry is always saying it issued out circulars to all schools that no students should be turned away from school but everyday they return home. The minister has to be clear on this issue because (school) heads do as they please,’’ said a parent identified as MaSibanda.
Meanwhile, councillors have given parents the leeway to stagger payment of school fees, a situation that would see the parents paying the fees monthly rather than making one payment for the whole term.
According to the latest council report, it was noted that there was a need for parents to stagger fees payment as most of the parents were evidently facing financial constraints.
The councillors also noted that parents still owed council a total of US$797 343 and they were in the process of issuing out summons to the owing parents in a bid to recover the monies.