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The assault on education
Christians Together for Justice and Peace (CTJP)
May 19, 2004

Christians Together for Justice and Peace, an ecumenical group of Church leaders drawn from a wide cross-section of denominations in Bulawayo, submits to the media the following statement concerning the assault on education by the ruling party.

On the surface it may seem right for the government of the day to protect its citizens from unwarranted increases in school fees. Closer examination however reveals that it is not as simple as this. The fact is that the schools are not shielded from the economic realities of our time, such as wage increases and the escalating cost of consumables and school maintenance in an environment of hyper inflation.

It is our observation that it is not the schools which are responsible for making bad economic decisions but rather those charged with the government of our country. Most schools run on a non-profit making basis and are content simply to balance their expenditure (of which the biggest single item is the teachers’ salaries) against their fee income. No, the real issue here is the failed economic policies of this regime. If the economy was sound and inflation was kept at manageable levels then schools would not need to increase fees significantly. It is the collapse of the national economy which has necessitated the increases in school fees term on term.

The inescapable truth is that the cause of our present predicament is bad governance. A failed administration is now desperately trying to find scapegoats to divert attention from its own manifest failures. Any school worth its salt is bound to increase its fees to the level required to maintain hard-won standards.

The assault on education began when the Heads of many mission schools and some government schools were suspended following unavoidable fee increases – for which the Heads were in no way responsible in any event since it is the school governing boards which set the fees. Then followed the unlawful forced closure of private schools at the beginning of the second term and the disgraceful manner in which some Heads of these schools and members of the school boards were deliberately humiliated, arrested and held (again unlawfully) in police custody.

It is our observation that most private schools and some mission schools have succeeded in maintaining reasonable standards while by and large government schools, having been starved of the necessary resources, are now showing signs of serious neglect and low morale. If today the success of the private school sector tends to show up the deficiencies of government institutions we ask why they, the private schools, should be penalized for this.

What is the regime’s motive, we ask, for this sustained assault upon the most successful sector of the educational system. Is it simply a measure of their success in providing the quality education which government schools have generally failed to do – another embarrassing reminder of bad governance ? Here we simply note the fact that most if not all highly-placed ZANU PF politicians and civil servants chose to send their children to private schools. And lest this be interpreted as a racial issue, we note also that approximately 80 per cent of the students attending private schools are black.

Another more sinister interpretation of the regime’s motive is that the forced closure of the private schools is a part of a larger plan to destroy all pockets of independent thought. The private schools have become in our time icons of free and liberal thinking which the regime is no longer willing to tolerate. By the same token they are perceived by an authoritarian regime as places in which dissent is encouraged, together with an alternative vision for the nation. The irony is of course that Mr Mugabe himself went to a Catholic mission school , Kutama, where he was given the opportunity and encouraged to think freely. Since he sends his own children to private schools we must assume that he still values this quality.

On this interpretation the regime’s motives are down-right evil. They imply a deliberate intention to destroy the urban middle class, black and white, in order to create a totally dependent and subservient population of peasants, to whom the idea of independent thought would be taboo. In which case the issue is not really the fees charged at all but something altogether more sinister. The inescapable reality is an unpopular regime clinging desperately to power, and willing even to sacrifice the education of its children to this end.

This regime has no shame. Since ZANU PF misrule has been challenged by a formidable opposition the ruling elite have stooped to using children as pawns in their grand power game. In the youth militia we see our young people being brain-washed to do the most shocking things to their parents. We see youths trained to rape and kill – and all this to maintain an unpopular clique of politicians in power. And here we note with particular disappointment the refusal of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights to examine the gross human rights’ abuses perpetrated in this country. Is it not shameful that the UN which is committed to do all in its power to protect the child, should dodge this issue ? The cruel tyranny under which we are suffering today is having a devastating impact upon the youth of Zimbabwe, and it is high time the member states of the UNCHR, and particularly those from the SADC region, who voted against examining the regime’s human rights’ record woke up to this fact.

If the unlawful forced closure of the private schools had one positive effect it was surely to challenge the parents of this nation to think more seriously about the education of their children. Hopefully it will have brought to our attention a fact that we too easily lose sight of – namely that providing a quality education is a costly exercise. It is costly in financial terms and also in terms of the personal involvement required of parents. If the enterprise is to succeed parents will need to be far more vigilant of all that threatens their children’s welfare – and ready to make their stand against partisan political policies. Headmasters and board chairmen of schools should not be alone out there defending a good educational system against mischievous interference. All caring and responsible parents should be standing alongside them.

Our response therefore to another aspect of the national crisis is again to call for Christian solidarity in resisting evil and upholding truth and justice.

Christians Together for Justice and Peace
Bulawayo

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