The Chronicle
11 September 2012
Education is a basic right and every effort must be made to ensure every boy and girl is in school. This helps the country groom enlightened citizens. While not all children are gifted academically, there is a certain level of education, secondary education, that every child should attain. This will help the child even if they are to go for vocational training or pursue a career in sports, arts or music. They will at least have a basic education to help them in their fields while the academically gifted ones pursue their own dreams up to university level.
On Monday there were disturbing reports that some schools are demanding that parents should pay full fees and levies before their children could be admitted into class.
This left some parents with children at boarding schools desperate and being forced to run around looking for money after their children had been barred from boarding school buses to take them to their schools.
Previously parents who could not pay the fees and levies in one instalment were agreeing on payment plans with school authorities.
The payment plans allowed the parents to pay the fees in instalments, which was an understandable arrangement for those parents facing difficulties raising the fees and levies at once or those with more than one child in school. Now if the schools demand that everything be paid upfront before a child is allowed into class, they are making life difficult for parents and guardians.
The Zimbabwean economy, although it has slightly recovered from a decade-long illegal economic embargo imposed by the West, is still wobbling. Most companies are still operating at way below their normal capacities and a good number of parents or guardians are employed by these struggling businesses. In Bulawayo a lot of companies have closed, some are still closing while others have relocated to Harare and other parts of the country. This has left thousands of parents and guardians jobless.
The retrenched workers are eking out a living in the informal sector or relying on rentals for those who were fortunate to acquire houses. Some of the parents are civil servants who are paid salaries below the poverty datum line. We feel it is unfair on the part of the schools to expect parents faced with this kind of scenario to pay fees and levies in one instalment.
We know some parents might owe more than one term’s fees and levies. But there are those parents with good track records and these should be allowed to continue paying in instalments. Fine we understand schools need money for their operations and other related costs as pointed out by the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Senator David Coltart.
However, Minister Coltart acknowledges that it is a problem when the schools start demanding the full payment upfront, which is exactly our argument.
“You would find that schools require funds to operate and because of the environment we are in, their only source of money are parents. The problem is when they start demanding full payment upfront which would infringe on the right of the child to access education,†Minister Coltart said. We urge schools to be compassionate and give a chance to those parents with proven track records. In the same vein we also urge parents to pay up their dues because schools need the money for their operations.
Minister Coltart’s advice for school authorities to open up and for parents to negotiate to avoid children being sent home is the route to take. “Schools cannot be allowed to collapse but at the same time we would want to urge parents to make education a priority and pay fees on time or make payment plans with the schools,†the Minister aptly put it.