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

Moving forward in Zimbabwe
Reducing poverty and promoting growth
even further, with the result that in urban areas teachers have not
been able to afford the bus fares to school. 10 One stop-gap strategy
to enable schools to function would be for donors to provide a
foreign exchange salary supplement to teachers in the same way as
they have done for nurses and doctors. 11 Such payment would need
to be done at school level to avoid heavy bureaucratisation, and
should be targeted at the poorer sections of the community. One
good outcome of recent problems is the empowerment of the
SDCs to solve their own problems. A joint donor-SDC programme
in support of teachers could help to re-start schools in 2010 as a
stop-gap measure.
It is evident that the system of parental responsibility for
schools requires renewal, as some problems have become more
conspicuous. Evident problems include the following:
• Poorer children have been forced to leave schools because
of their inability to pay relatively modest fees.
• Some children have been unable to pay for examination
fees, so could not sit examinations. As a result they lack
the certification that will enable them to qualify for further
education or for employment.
• Some children do not have birth certificates, and so are
unable to enrol in school.
All of these problems can and should be solved by collaboration
between the state, parents and communities, the private sector and
donors. This lack of coordination is problematic. The state and
donors can play a catalytic role in enabling such contributions to
be augmented and directed towards greater quality and equity. For
example, scholarship programmes can be provided both at elite
and other schools to cater for those parents struggling to pay
school and examination fees. A system by which about 20 per cent
of places in every school are scholarship places provided for by a
combination of state, donor and community funding can assist in
bringing education to the poorest sections of the community who
have now been excluded. Parents in agricultural communities have
been providing basic foods to teachers, and such contributions
should continue. A very substantial number of school children
are suffering from stunting and malnutrition. This is an area of
intervention through which schools, together with parents, private
sector and donors, can assist in establishing supplementary feeding
programmes.
• Donor and NGO contributions are often uncoordinated
with each other, and almost completely uncoordinated with
the Ministries of Education. As a result inputs may not be
sustainable or replicable, and may reflect donor priorities
rather than national or community priorities.
• Donor contributions are in the ‘emergency’ rather than
‘developmental’ mode. This means donor funds come in
the form of ‘charity’, and may not develop local, sustainable
capacities. A good example is food provision, where food
is brought from the US and the EU and donated to the
poor, but little attempt has been made to provide seeds and
fertiliser to enable peasant farmers to be self-sufficient. This
approach has also been demonstrated in education: there is
little or no coordination with the MOE, which is ostensibly
responsible for education, with donors dealing with the
Department of Social Welfare or directly with schools.
In order to overcome these problems there is a need for
better coordination between donors, NGOs and the MOE
in identifying priorities and setting up improved systems
that are sustainable. The system of direct contribution to
the schools is a good one, and should be retained, provided
there is more policy and strategy coordination.
6.5 Conclusion
Zimbabwe’s education sector was once a regional leader, but has
suffered greatly in the crisis years with declining budgets and largescale
loss of personnel. It will be essential to rebuild the education
system, both to restore human capital and in the longer term as a
source of foreign exchange. This chapter has examined both the
impact of the crisis on the education sector and detailed a range of
recommendations for starting it on the road to recovery. Appendix
1 provides a more detailed, pragmatic and practical approach,
including a prioritisation of recommendations, divided amongst
the four main partners in education – the state, the private sector,
the parents and community, and donors. In the next chapter we
turn to another key social sector, that of health.
Donors
Donors are already playing an important role in providing
funding directly to schools through NGOs, particularly in terms
of providing food, fees and textbooks for an estimated 1.8 million
HIV/AIDS orphans. However, there are major problems with the
system of donor funding, including the following:
• Donors have set up alternative and overlapping
administrative systems through NGOs. NGO workers are
paid considerably more than MOE officers: NGO salaries
average about US$300-3,000 per month. In contrast civil
servants may be paid considerably less than US$100 per
month. As a result the state system has become depleted
of competent staff, whilst NGO staff are amongst the
most privileged of the new elite. Donor funding has thus
contributed directly to the weakening of state capacities.
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