Moving forward in Zimbabwe - Brooks World Poverty Institute - The ...

Moving forward in Zimbabwe
Reducing poverty and promoting growth
The area of pre-primary education showed significant
achievement, as 64 per cent of first graders in Zimbabwe had preschool
background in 2006. There were rural-urban differentials,
with 67 per cent of all urban Grade 1 pupils having attended
pre-school, compared with 63 per cent for rural areas. This is a
relatively favourable figure that ranks Zimbabwe as sixth in the
provision of pre-primary education within the Southern African
Development Community (SADC). This is somewhat surprising,
given that all other figures showed a decline. The main explanation
for this is that although the state provides the curriculum, this level
of education is highly dependent on parental initiative and control,
with a very small subsidy from the state.
Although the rate of transition to secondary education was
69.7 per cent in 2003-2004, there is a greater erosion of enrolments
at secondary level, with 827,820 enrolled in Forms 1-4 in 2001 and
only 774,921 in 2006, a drop of some 9.4 per cent, at a time when the
population was still increasing. The number of students sitting for
the ‘O’ level examinations also fluctuated, with the highest number
of candidates reaching 159,700 in 2000, compared to 149,263 in
2005, a drop of 6.8 per cent (Ministry of Education, Sport and
Culture, 2007a: 136). Lack of school fees and examination fees,
combined with the large number of orphans, mainly due to HIV/
AIDS deaths, has led to high dropouts. However enrolment in the
sixth form continued to increase, from 31,505 in 2001 to 56,566
in 2006, an 80 per cent increase. A similar trend is found at the
tertiary level, with a doubling of the number of universities and
with enrolments increasing to 56,637 in 2006 (Tichagwa, 2007: 2)
as compared to 48,781 in 1999 (CSO, 2001a: 76), an increase of
16 per cent. As noted in the section on ‘Investment in education’
below, investment in higher education increased after 2000, whilst
investment in primary education shrank considerably.
Although beginning to falter, quantitatively it is clear that the
country made great strides. It is imperative, however, to look at
the quality of human capital formation emerging from this system.
This can be looked at in a number of ways: through specific
monitoring and evaluation studies; examination results; the quality
of the curriculum and textbooks; the availability of textbooks;
the availability and quality of teachers; the quality of planning,
supervision and Ministry support; and external indicators, such
as the employment potential of school graduates. In this report,
quality will include the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium
for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) monitoring and
evaluation study of 1999; examinations results; some evaluation
of the curriculum and textbooks; the availability of textbooks; the
availability and quality of teachers; and some observations regarding
Ministry support. There have been no studies regarding external
indicators in terms of the employment potential of school, college
and university graduates. However, the exodus of more than two
million Zimbabweans, mostly young people, indicates that there
is a serious disjuncture between the needs of the Zimbabwean
economy and the graduates of the education system. On the other
hand, since these same graduates appear to do relatively well in the
diaspora, it may be surmised that the education system prepared
them for work outside of the country. However, the dysfunctional
nature of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade makes
it all the more difficult to evaluate the relevance of the education
system to the economic situation.
The quality of primary education, with specific emphasis
on Grade 6 achievement, has been studied in 1991 and 1995, by
SACMEQ (Machingaidze et al, 1998). There is no similar study for
the quality of secondary and tertiary education. For primary schools
the SACMEQ study covers the socio-economic characteristics of
Grade 6 pupils and teachers; educational financing; the teaching
conditions in primary schools; the conditions of school buildings
and furniture; the availability of teaching and learning materials;
the academic and professional qualifications of teachers and school
heads; the English language test results; and practical suggestions
for policies and actions. Table 6.2 reproduces the list of teaching
materials and classroom furniture in Grade 6 classrooms found in
the study.
Table 6.2: Percentage of Grade 6 pupils in
classrooms with selected teaching materials and
classroom furniture, 1995.
Teaching materials
Item
Percentage
with item
Chalk 92.8
A wall chart of any kind 89.0
A map of Zimbabwe 76.6
A map of Africa 62.7
A map of the world 49.9
A classroom library or book corner 46.6
An atlas 83.6
An English dictionary 73.1
Classroom furniture
A useable chalk board 92.3
A cupboard 48.6
One or more bookshelves 39.3
A teacher table 79.5
A teacher chair 79.2
Source: Machingaidze et al, 1998: 34.
This study showed impressive provisioning in terms of
education infrastructure, although there was need for more
classrooms and other facilities, such as a school library (58.2 per
cent of schools had one); staff room (30.3 per cent of schools
had one); piped water (37.9 per cent of schools had this); well or
borehole (71.1 per cent of schools had one); electricity (provided
to 23.6 per cent of schools); telephone (33.6 per cent of schools
had a telephone). The percentage of teachers with at least 11
years of academic education was 95.9 per cent, whilst 77.4 per
cent had at least three years of teacher training. An impressive 90
per cent of school heads had suitable professional and academic
qualifications.
If we take a look at the Grade 7 public examinations as a
proxy for the quality of value addition in education, the decline in
achievement is evident. Table 6.3 indicates that the percentage of
passes was shrinking over the period 1997-2000.
Except for African languages, pass rates have declined
compared with the peak year for results. This is somewhat
surprising, given the fact that even up to 2006 only 3.4 per cent of
primary school teachers were unqualified, comprising 2,184 out of
a total of 65,098 (Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture, 2007a:
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