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Inflation and education don't mix
Cathy Buckle
August 07, 2004

Dear Family and Friends,

We have just come to the end of a very tense three months in Zimbabwe's educational calendar as schools closed for the summer break this week. When I popped into the school office on the last day of term it wasn't to get my son's report but to ask if we would still have a school to come back to in September. Zimbabwe's schools have been teetering on the edge of collapse for the last three months since our Minister of Education declared that private schools were too expensive and stipulated that schools could only charge what his Ministry decided was an acceptable fee - regardless of what we, the parent body thought, decided, voted for or agreed to with our School Associations and Boards.

Despite the fact that inflation is at almost 400%, the Minister of Education refused to back down on his ruling about school fees. During this school term, postage and telephone costs have risen by over 400%. Talking in percentages tends to be meaningless and I find myself turning to the actual dollars and cents. Last term when my son's school needed to send me an important letter (one that wouldn't get buried at the bottom of his suitcase), it cost $500. Now it costs $2300 for just the stamp and says nothing of the price of the paper, the envelope, the computer ink and the wages of the person who writes the letter. I punched a few numbers into my calculator this morning and worked out that if each parent at my son's school were to get just one posted letter a month from the school, the cost of the stamps alone would consume 1.2 million dollars. The Minister of Education has stipulated that this school cannot charge more than 1.4 million dollars per child per term. So one students entire school fees for a three month term, gives each parent just one letter a month from the school.

Last term when my son got sick and the school had to phone me, the call cost $120. This term that same three minute call costs $585. Last term when my son got sick I knew that the school would give him ear drops, a bandage or a pain killer. This term I know that none of those things are guaranteed anymore. When you extrapolate the dollars and cents of the most basic services into the number of students at an average small private school, it is horrific and physically impossible for the schools to run on the fees the Minister of Education has stipulated.

No one really knows why Zimbabwe's Minister of Education has decided to do what he is doing to our private schools. The Minister continues to shout about racism in the 1960's and the privileged white elite, but he still chooses to ignore the fact that the enrolment at all Zimbabwe's private schools in 2004 is comprised of at least 80% black children. The Minister is adamant that no private schools may increase their fees again in 2004, completing ignoring the existence of 394.6% inflation. It is almost as if the Minister has just decided that inflation and education don't mix, and that's the end of it.

For three months schools have been struggling on, depending on donations from parents and staggering from one week to the next, hoping that sanity would surface or sense would prevail. It has not and already the obvious repercussions have begun. Last week one private school, established in 1911, has declared its necessity to go into provisional liquidation as it simply cannot pay its bills anymore. Everything in Zimbabwe is now directly affected by the politics and governance of our ruling party and I mean everything. Until next week, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 7th August 2004. http://africantears.netfirms.com My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available outside Africa from: orders@africabookcentre.com ; www.africabookcentre.com ; www.amazon.co.uk ; in Australia and New Zealand: johnmreed@johnreedbooks.com.au ; Africa: www.kalahari.net; www.exclusivebooks.com

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