The Sunday News
9 July 2012
WITH close to a 100 percent literacy rate and being number one in Africa, Zimbabwe has achieved a milestone in the field of education.
The nation is undoubtedly the envy of many in the region. because of the importance the nation attaches to education many parents invest so much towards ensuring that their children receive the best tutorials money can buy. Children just have to pass because this is the only license to progress. This development has seen some hungry but enterprising teachers organising private tutorials and charging an arm and a leg from parents.
What has been unsettling to most parents have been the fact that some of the teachers mobilised whole classes from boarding schools and brought them into the city for the holiday lessons. Being the class teachers, all the students obliged because there was the risk that the teacher would not go back to the topic come opening of schools. This was real ransom and parents had no choice but to pay.
This is a teacher who deliberately does not finish the syllabus and capitalises on this to make a killing through holiday lessons.
In yesterday’s issue of our sister paper Saturday Chronicle Government announced that it was working on prosecuting teachers who conduct private lessons at a fee in a bid to protect parents and guardians from such unscrupulous educators.
“The tendency in the past has been that teachers would spend much energy conducting private lessons for a fee at the expense of formal lessons in the classroom,†the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Mr David Coltart, said.
We welcome this development and urge the Government to translate its threats into real action. Over the years several pronouncements and threats to take action on headmasters who sent students home for non-payment of fees have been made but no tangible action was taken. Mr Coltart would order heads of schools not to send children home and before the ink of his threats dried children would be returning home on the opening day. This scenario left many wondering who runs the Ministry of Education — the Minister and his permanent secretary, provincial education  directors, education officers or the headmasters.