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Zim private schools nationalised
The Mail & Guardian (SA)
May 07, 2004

Harare -Confusion reigned on Friday as President Robert Mugabe's government vowed to "nationalise" private schools that had raised fees above state-stipulated charges, while the country's high court declared the regime's closure of 46 of the schools was illegal. Private school officials confirmed that at least nine school heads and governors had been arrested since Wednesday, although most had been released. A high court on Thursday declared that the closure of the 46 schools by Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere was "null and void," but Friday morning armed police were still stationed outside most of the private schools affected, staff said, but were allowing children into only Hartmann House, the Catholic junior school that had applied for the court order. A report in the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper said education authorities had been given permission to reopen, but it could not be confirmed. Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said the order by judge Susan Mavangira was made with the agreement of state lawyers. "The judge said that the minister's order was null and void. It means that it doesn't apply just to Hartmann house, but in the case of all the schools that were closed."

As schools opened for the new term on Tuesday, the government announced that it had banned 46 schools with about 33 000 pupils from starting lessons because they had not received official approval to raise their fees above 10% a year. Armed police were stationed outside school gates to bar teachers and pupils from entering. Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic crisis with inflation running at a regular 600%, the highest in the world, and private schools say they cannot continue running unless they raise their fees in line with soaring costs. Zimbabwe's most exclusive boarding school, the Anglican church-run Peterhouse in the town of Marondera 75km east of Harare, raised its fees to Z$9,9-million ($1 850) a term. A letter issued by the Association of Trust Schools which represents all the country's about 65 private schools, said that at a meeting with Chidwedere on Wednesday, he declared that all schools that did not cut their fees to the state-set levels would be "nationalised" on Friday. It said he denounced the schools as "racist" and said they were trying to keep out poor blacks.

He demanded that they raised the ratio of black pupils to 60%, but the state-controlled daily Herald quoted school officials as saying that they had advised him that they were already well beyond that, and that the black-dominated parent bodies had overwhelmingly agreed to the fee hikes. Members of a delegation from a private school parents organisation who met Chigwedere on Tuesday said he had warned them, "You can go to court but we will ignore the courts." He also reportedly said that "we are doing to the private schools what we are doing to the farms," a reference to the lawless, violent seizure of nearly all the country's white-owned farm land since 2000. Mugabe last month attacked private schools for charging fees that were "a burden" to poor children. Schools were now being ordered by the education ministry to sign an undertaking they would keep their fees at the official limits, or be kept closed. Education experts say that the state school system is collapsing under an almost total lack of government support, with teachers demoralised, overworked and poorly paid, and classrooms dilapidated.

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