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The health of the economy is improving markedly. Prices of various goods and services have generally stabilised since August last year.

Many products that used to run out in the past are now readily available on the local market. Industrial output is rising. Infrastructure worth billions is being built countrywide.

However, it has to be acknowledged that a number of citizens are still facing immense challenges getting by. Covid-19 has caused some job losses, decline in incomes and made it impossible for informal businesspeople to operate freely. As a result, they are struggling for food.

They struggle to pay school fees for their children. The bigger proportion of the strugglers are orphans, the elderly, chronically-ill and the disabled who are too young, old, sick or physically challenged to help themselves.

With that in mind, the Government has initiated and expanded a range of social protections.

One of them is the Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam) through which the Government pays tuition fees for children coming from poor backgrounds and are enrolled at public schools. Without Beam, millions of kids would be out of school, with no future. Without it, as many as 1,5 million kids would have been out of school this year but as Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Professor Paul Mavima told Parliament on Wednesday, the Government is taking care of their tuition fees. Not only tuition fees but also other critical requirements such as school uniforms, examination fees and stationery after his ministry expanded assistance under Beam to cover them.

“The main assistance programme that we have in primary and secondary education, is the Beam Programme and that programme assists learners with tuition payment. It used to be only the tuition payment but now we have extended it to cover all the needs for the learners, including exam fees, uniforms, stationery and other requirements. So, the Beam programme which this year is targeting 1,5 million learners is the one that comes to mind with those grants-in-aid,” said Prof Mavima.

There are about 4,5 million children in schools countrywide, 1,5 million of whom are being supported by the Government.

Thanks to Beam, the national policy of making basic education accessible to all has chances of materialising.

We are particularly happy about the expanded remit of Beam this year. Payment of tuition fees is important, we acknowledge, but without stationery, uniforms and examination fees, the assistance was inadequate. We say this because the prices of stationery and school uniforms are cost-reflective thus are most probably higher than what parents with kids at a public school would pay in tuition fees which cannot be increased without the endorsement of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.

Therefore, parents or guardians who cannot pay tuition fees for their children or an orphaned kid who cannot pay his or her school fees and is on Beam is unlikely to be able to pay examination fees, buy a full set of uniforms and all the stationery they need for effective learning.

So, the Government has done well by expanding the coverage of Beam, not only in terms of the number of kids enrolled but also in terms of services provided.

Ordinarily, the total number of children benefitting under Beam, at 1,5 million this year, is so high anyone would be happy that the safety net is benefitting many and serving its purpose.

We, however, have reported on these pages that some people, among them teachers and those close to them are abusing the public support mechanism by enrolling their children under it. These are gainfully-employed people who must be able to educate their children but are abusing Beam by getting their children under it.

Because of this, it is possible that some of the 1,5 million children under the facility this year are not supposed to have their tuition fees paid by the Government. Because of that again, it is possible that there are kids whose parents or guardians are genuinely poor, who are not benefitting from an intervention that is meant for them.

That worries us a lot.

The Government is worried too, as Prof Mavima told Parliament on Wednesday.

A thoroughgoing investigation is thus necessary so that the undeserving are delisted from Beam, the deserving enrolled and the integrity of the safety net preserved.

But delisting undeserving cases is not enough punishment. The Government can consider tougher punishment that can include charging the teachers and their well-off connections with abuse of office or fraud.

A teacher so charged and found guilty deserves the sack. Also, offenders must be made to pay restitution equivalent to the sums that they duped the Government into paying towards their children’s education.