Sunday Mail
30 May 2010
By F. Madaya
We greatly appreciate the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture’s efforts to reduce school fees in Government schools, but this should not end there.
Schools now demand huge levies from parents. The minister is the one who regulates the conduct of both Government and private schools in the country hence he should move a step further and regulate school fees and levies charged by all schools, including private schools.
For example, some private schools are charging as much as US$3 300 per child per term. For a school with an enrolment of 500, this comes to a staggering US$1 650 000.
It is amazing how schools, particularly private schools, manipulate their accounts to give a false picture of real expenditure. A false impression has been created that the fees charged would have been agreed upon at the so-called AGMs, but the truth is most parents find it unnecessary to argue against the fees that would have been presented by the schools’ boards because experience has shown that the school authorities will argue on technicalities that will see them maintain fees at the levels they want.
One can easily deduce a take-it-or leave-it attitude and this is the main reason why the minister should come in and rescue innocent Zimbabweans seeking to educate their children through available education systems within the country.
Parents are prepared to pay, but the fees should be reflective of the general level of prices of goods and services in the country. Not only that, the school fees should also be reflective of the general level of earnings in the country.
The school boards always argued that food was the most expensive component in the whole matrix of running a school. Now food prices have been coming down, so there should be a marked reduction in the food component of school fees.
In one of the daily newspapers, Minister David Coltart was quoted as saying that parents take their children to schools of their own choice hence they should abide by the terms and conditions of the schools, including the fees demanded.
I think that was an irresponsible statement by the minister and should be retracted. The impression he gives by such statements is that we have no regulations for our education system. Minister, remember the country’s charter says it is the right of every child to have access to education, implying that it is the minister’s job to ensure that the education environment is conducive for all Zimbabweans to send their children to school.
The minister should not give the impression that the education arena in Zimbabwe is a free-for-all market where people form trusts to amass wealth. Educating our children is not supposed to be a profit-making venture but a social responsibility.
This matter is very important and the Government, through the Minister of Education, should, at this important time in our life as a nation, make a policy announcement regarding school fees charged by both Government and private schools.
Cabinet must deliberate on this very important issue and come up with limits for school fees and levies for both Government and private schools.
Just as teachers can go on strike for their salaries, I think it is high time parents come together and refuse completely to pay unreasonable school fees until, and only until, Government intervenes.
F. Madaya — Harare.