The Herald
Editorial
30 April 2010
Harare — Zimbabwe is in great danger, looking at the Grade 7 results for last year, of producing a generation where the majority of school-leavers will be functionally illiterate, a tragedy when it is realised that their parents were probably the first fully literate generation.
The results show that while urban children were not too badly affected by the educational meltdown of the 2000s, with more than 70 percent achieving four to 24 points, rural children were badly hit. Results from provinces where almost all children attend rural schools suggests less than a quarter managed this level.
In fact, more than 85 percent of children should achieve at least 24 points and remedial education needs to be offered the small minority who cannot, so that at least they are functionally literate.
While everyone knows of the problems that follow from the economic meltdown of the 2000s, we also have to deal with the attitudes of far too many parents who seem to believe that their children are entitled to quality education for free or at low cost.
That parental attitude is weird, because the present generation of parents were the first to benefit from the post-independence education expansion. Their parents, the grandparents of today’s schoolchildren, made huge financial sacrifices to ensure that expansion was successful.
After independence Zimbabwe became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to give all children the right to at least 11 years of formal education.
This huge effort involved building hundreds of new schools, introducing special programmes to train, convert and upgrade thousands of teachers, and having new textbooks written, printed and bought.
But everyone thought it was worthwhile. Parents made considerable sacrifices to help finance the expansion, for despite the fact that the education ministry absorbed easily the largest share of the Government budget, it was not nearly enough. Urban parents were expected to pay significant levies and rural parents to offer free labour to actually build, expand or maintain the schools their children attended.
And it worked for 20 years. There were problems, principally in secondary schools, over the fact that the syllabus was designed for the academic minority with nothing really for those who were unlikely to ever pass O-Level. But moves were afoot to introduce more vocational subjects to help ensure that a school-leaver could either progress to higher training or start earning a living.
No one denies that ground was lost in the 2000s with the sanctions-induced socio-economic problems. But the effort made in the 1980s to create the system that was damaged still dwarfs the effort that must now be made to restore what we had and start moving forward.
The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, notes that a higher percentage of the National Budget must be allocated to education. He has a point. Round about 20 percent was the figure for several years when things were working.
We also need the sort of support we used to get from the international community. We realise that there are a lot of demands on the global purse, but fairly modest sums by international standards can make a huge difference to Zimbabwean schools.
But we feel parents must also be willing to take more responsibility. We see in urban areas what can be done. Even in the poorest suburbs, keen parents tend to congregate at certain schools, and ensure that minimum funding is available. All parents have to make the same effort.
In the 1980s, the then Education Minister, Dr Dzingai Mutumbuka, made it crystal clear that he expected urban parents and urban authorities to pay far more towards their schools. “I will provide teachers and chalk: you do the rest.”
The small amount he had left over in his budget after paying the teachers he concentrated on the poorest of the poor in rural areas, and even there he expected parents to do what they could. He also pressed embassies and other well-wishers to help these rural schools. It was working; things were getting better each year.
We need to go back to that attitude of mind. The parents of the 1980s, few of whom had attended secondary school and many of whom had not even finished seven years of primary school, sweated to ensure their children could take advantage of one of the most crucial gains of independence, education for all.
Now the beneficiaries of that effort and those sacrifices, the parents of today, must make the same effort. It was not a one-off; it is something we are going to have to do for decades to come if a small developing world country is going to have education for all.
Minister Coltart and his officials must obviously plan and lead the effort. They cannot sit in their ivory tower in central Harare and wait for money and help.
If trained teachers are in short supply, we must re-introduce the Zintec colleges. We must have clear packages of books and building materials that donors can buy for a school. Even rural parents without cash can help build decent teachers’ houses and maintain school maize and vegetable fields.
Above all, we have to remember that the education system we had requires more than the taxes can pay for. Unless we want to revert to the standard African educational model we must realise that it will take unremitting effort for decades.