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Stephen Mpofu

High tuition fees being demanded by many schools are threatening to bring Zimbabwe unceremoniously crushing down from the top of the educational ladder where the country is at present ensconced among other nations flaunting top literacy ratings on the African continent if measures are not taken by the powers that be to restore sanity to public and other schools.

Already hundreds if not thousands of pupils have been reported to have dropped out of schools after their parents failed to pay the exorbitant fees demanded by schools – and the trend seems to be worsening with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education now telling schools that no fees must be increased without the approval of parents and without proof to the Government that budgets have been expeditiously exhausted to warrant additional financial injection.

But how many parents possess the literate, let alone financial acumen enabling them to effectively monitor expenditures by schools?

Moreover, are expenditures by public schools subject to the scrutiny of the Auditor-General to ensure that funds are properly spent so that the ministry responsible can grant approval for fees increases with the knowledge that the money paid by parents is properly spent?

The good news however is that the ministry has ordered that there will be no increase in tuition fees prior to the opening of schools this coming week — a move that guarantees education as a basic right for Zimbabwean children and it is to be hoped that non-government schools will follow suit.

Education is a legitimate right of every Zimbabwean child, which suggests that children from the periphery, the countryside, where parents are not in gainful employment like their counterparts in urban areas, particularly need to be protected from rampant fees hikes.

In colonial Rhodesia, and indeed other countries under foreign rule, education was regarded as a means by which Africans would and could transcend racial oppression by colonial governments hence parents out there in the countryside kept goats and sheep and chickens and crops among cattle, which they sold at home and in urban centres for the education of their offspring as a tool by means of which “our educated children will free us from racial oppression by those without knees now sitting on our haunches as our rulers”, or said something to that effect.

It is small wonder then that many founding fathers of independent African states rose to the high pinnacles of education where Zimbabweans today find themselves with much pride for their indefatigable pursuit of education.

Now should unaffordable school fees reduce future generations of Zimbabweans to a future population armed mainly with functional literacy, any dream about growing our currently illegal, Western sanctions-beleaguered economy will remain forlorn because setting up new companies and create new jobs requires educated people with research and other innovative skills for economic growth.

Which suggests that extortionate school fees are wont to deprive the country of skilled human resources for economic growth in the same way as unbridled prices of goods by retailers tends to kill the geese — the general public — that lay the golden eggs for the businesses in question to continue to thrive.

What the above and what follows suggests is a need for the powers that be to ensure that all security systems are go to ensure that no Zimbabwean believes s/he is above the law.

Reports that the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission has seized foreign vehicles blued into the country by people unwilling to pay duty for the imports no doubt make security conscious and patriotic Zimbabweans wonder if some lunatic somewhere might not exploit any apparent security loopholes at our borders to bring in weapons of mass destruction.

An alcoholic beverage said to cause impotence has reportedly been smuggled into the country where it is sold on the streets.

If verified as true, the report adds weight to the need for beefing up security along our borders and at airports to ensure that, for instance, enemies of this country will not exploit any perceived laxity to smuggle weapons of mass destruction to destabilise our nation by causing whatever mayhem they deem favourable to achieve their satanic goals.

Our people should therefore be on high alert to thwart any and all satanic agendas against our independent and free nation. 

Above all, this discourse suggests that when all security systems are go our people will blissfully retire to bed buoyed by self-assurance that the foreseeable future will not turn out to be dzangaradzimu /mirage.