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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. 84
Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth Notes 1. Note: data based on stats from UNDP and UNESCO, and may differ from those provided by the Ministries directly. 2. From Ministry of Agriculture, Dept of Agricultural Education, Student Statistics, 2003–2007. 3. Sources: Ministry of Finance Estimates of Expenditure, 1980/81–1990/91, presented to the Parliament of Zimbabwe, and the Ministry of Education and Culture, Annual Report of the Secretary of Education and Culture, 1980–1990, presented to the Parliament of Zimbabwe. 4. This is the agreed minimum level of basic education accepted by SADC. It is also the recommended minimum level made by the Nziramasanga (1999) Commission on Education. 5. This is a common pattern in many European and Asian countries, where pupils are provided with nine years of general education, and are able to choose from different courses in the tenth year. For example in Sweden there are some 25 different courses in the tenth grade, offering a variety of academic and technical/vocational courses of various levels. 6. One of the challenges facing developing countries, including Zimbabwe, is the need for varying levels of technical/vocational knowledge and skills, as the country’s development needs vary from the most basic to very sophisticated skills. It would be appropriate for the secondary school system to provide basic levels of technical/vocational knowledge and skills which were not available to the parents’ generation, but which are now essential for the higher development of agriculture and small home-based industries. 7. There is a tendency everywhere to favour high quality and very expensive buildings, many of which become white elephants. This has also happened in Zimbabwe in the past, with a result that there are some unutilised and underutilised buildings. One of the first steps will be to utilise existing facilities to best effect. Whilst building standards do need to be sound and attractive, extravagance may not be advantageous to the country as a whole. 8. It is assumed that there will be one Ministry of Education. Presently responsibility for education is divided amongst several ministries, adding to inefficiencies. 9. There are about 250 education officers at district level, assisted by about 500 support staff. A small salary supplement of US$20-100 per month could provide enough for basic food and transport for such staff. This would give an estimate of about US$360,000 per annum, a very modest amount in real terms for rehabilitating the district education support system. 10. In the rural areas teachers have been able to manage by growing their own food, especially when they were able to benefit from the state small-scale land resettlement programme (known as the A1 programme) through which they obtained about five hectares of land. Roughly a quarter of rural teachers have managed to obtain some land (information from the African Institute for Agrarian Studies, Harare, November 2008), and they have managed to use this valuable asset to feed themselves. On the other hand parents have also begun to contribute food for teachers. Since September 2008 more privileged communities in urban areas have been charging US$10 per child per month for supplementary payment to teachers in foreign currency, but this is beyond the means of the poorer parents. Even a supplement of US$20 per month would be valuable. 11. Nurses and doctors are now paid US$30-700 per month through donor assistance to assist in the rehabilitation of the health sector. 85
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