Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Lazarus Dokora
FORMER Tanzanian leader, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere is credited for coining the phrase “Jewel of Africa”, in reference to Zimbabwe about 36 years ago.
Back then, he is reported to have told President Robert Mugabe to ensure that the young nation maintains its status as a jewel in all aspects.
To all intents and purposes, Nyerere must be turning in his grave today seeing the State of Zimbabwe, which had so much potential.
The country has since veered off course to become a pale shadow of its former self, with no semblance whatsoever of being a jewel.
Despite vast tracts of fertile countryside, Zimbabwe is now a basket case that can no longer feed itself.
One of the sectors that had so much potential at independence in 1980 was education.
President Mugabe pledged to make education his top priority. His government introduced an education-for-all policy.
Student enrolment ballooned after 1980 following the opening of schools that had been closed due to the protracted struggle for liberation.
A 1991 Ministry of Education Arts, Sport and Culture report noted that there were 4 461 viable and non-viable primary schools and 1 499 viable and non-viable secondary schools.
By 2004, the literacy rate in Zimbabwe had jumped from 77 percent in 1982 to 90 percent, a figure that placed the nation among the most literate on the African continent.
zimbabwean graduates are highly sought after in the region and beyond.
However, an economic downturn at the turn of the millennium dragged the education sector down the abyss.
Teaching, an esteemed profession in the years gone by, has lost its shine.
Unfortunately, even the New Year doesn’t seem to bring anything new for the sector.
While the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education received the highest allocation of US$803 million, at last week’s National Budget presentation, that allocation by Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa constitutes about 19,5 percent of the total budget falling — short of the 20 percent allocation recommended by the Dakar Declaration.
The Dakar declaration, promulgated in 2000, calls on member States to channel 20 percent of their national budgets towards education to ensure that the objective of education for all citizens and societies is accomplished.
Although education’s 2017 allocation is 1,4 percent more than what the sector received in 1980 when government allocated ZW$223 845 000 – which was 18,1 percent of the total budget, the allocation, in terms of value, was peanuts.
The allotment fundamentally means that each of the 3,2 million children enrolled in schools is ideally entitled to receiving US$250 in support for the entire year for their capacity development in core competencies.
Despite government having maintained an almost constant budget allocation for the sector since independence, the portion of the cake has progressively thinned over the past three years.
This year’s allocation of US$810 million was 9,5 percent lower than the US$890 million allocated in 2015, a situation which is reflective of the poor revenue inflows to Treasury over the past years.
Next year the allocation will fall to US$803 million, a 0,8 percent drop. And history has shown that the sector would most likely get just about six percent of its allocation as has been the trend over the years.
President Robert Mugabe
The allocations exclude funding for rehabilitating schools and building new ones. These plans are among the core objectives of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation.
However, the provision is better than what most sub-Saharan governments are channelling towards their education sector.
A United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 2016 primary and secondary education budget brief report noted that most countries in the region roll out an average of 16,5 percent and 4,2 percent of their Gross Domestic Product towards education.
There are mor challenges for the education sector going into 2017.
Chief among the challenges is the fact that US$789 million of the US$803 million allocation will be going towards salaries for the 122 756 strong education labour-force. This will take up about 98 percent of the total education allocation.
With about two percent of the budget likely to be spent on non-wage investments, the challenges to the sector getting into 2017 remain high.
Dilapidated and inadequate school infrastructure, uninspiring teaching and learning environments and acute shortage of teaching and learning materials are among the challenges.
UNICEF reports that persistent under-funding of the capital budget has resulted in a deficit of 33 600 classrooms nationwide.
This has been “severely impacting on children’s wellbeing, particularly in the rural and resettlement areas. This is further fuelling the deprivations and inequities that Zimbabwean children face”, UNICEF concluded.
To ensure that the problem of infrastructure is resolved, observers said there was need to increase the size and quality of government investment in non-wage education infrastructure as fiscal space grows, prioritising the more deprived provinces and districts. This will ensure equitable education outcomes for all children.
The cash-strapped government has had to rely on development partners, who have been rolling out support through pooled funding mechanisms such as the Education Transition Fund, and its successor, the Education Development Fund (EDF).
Education, like many sectors including health, is hanging by a thread as dependence on donor aid and loans is no longer guaranteed owing to donor fatigue.
In 2015 estimates show that government spending in teaching and learning material amounted to US$16,9 million compared to the US$32,7 million from the EDF. This year, EDF support hovered around US$21 million, about 1,6 times that of government budgeted support of US$13,1 million.
In 2017, EDF will avail US$31,8 million in support of the in-service teacher training programme, procurement of learner materials, early child development and science kits. This amount will also cover the provision of development grants for under-developed and financially constrained schools.
Another problem for the sector lies in the country’s planned adoption of a new curriculum, which is one costly exercise that will further drain government’s already dry coffers.
For example, there will be more subjects added to primary school children from the traditional four to nine learning areas, among them Physical Education, Mass Displays and Sport, Visual and Performing Arts, Science and Technology and Heritage Studies.
These would be examined at grade seven public examinations.
Teachers in primary schools would need rigorous training on how to teach these subjects to enhance quality delivery to pupils. This comes at a high cost.
Confirming the gloomy 2017 outlook, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president, Takafira Zhou, said the ill-treatment of teachers continues unabated.
“Teachers are de-motivated. They have poor salaries and pathetic working conditions. We are still calling for a professional council of teachers to help us run the sector professionally,” he said.
Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president, Obert Masaraure, concurred with Zhou.
“Government, in the budget, said it wants to deduct US$50 per month from our paltry salaries towards the housing scheme, which they told us is a non-monetary incentive. Is it an incentive or they are selling the houses? They never tire from looting from the poor,” he said.
Zimbabwe Teachers Association chief executive officer, Sifiso Ndlovu, said the budget doesn’t instil confidence in the sector.
“As it is, it is a repetition of the same things that have compromised the education sector for a long time and need to be looked into,” Ndlovu noted.
With the same minister who rarely consults, the same perennial blundering examination body, the same economy that is troubling parents who should pay fees, 2017 will just be a new year with the same old challenges, if not worse problems.
newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw
Follow us on Twitter on @FingazLive and on Facebook – The Financial Gazette