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Hands off private schools, court tells Chigwedere
Itai Musengeyi, The Herald (Zimbabwe)
September 21, 2006

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609210121.html

THE High Court has ordered the Minister of Education, Sport and Culture, Cde Aeneas Chigwedere, not to close private schools or to cause the arrest of their authorities for raising fees and levies.

Zimbabwean law does not allow any school to raise levies or fees without the approval of the Secretary for Education, Sport and Culture, although this approval must be automatic if the increase does not exceed inflation in the previous term.

High Court judge Justice Charles Hungwe on Tuesday allowed an urgent chamber application by the Association of Trust Schools (ATS) -- comprising Arundel School Trust, Ariel School Trust and Chisipite Junior School Trust -- which had sought the court's intervention on fees and levies.

The schools cited Cde Chigwedere, Secretary for Education, Sport and Culture Dr Stephen Mahere and Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri as respondents.

In their application, filed by Advocate Edith Mushore, who was instructed by Ms Sheila Jarvis of Atherstone and Cook, the trusts argued that the Education Act did not permit the minister to close schools over fees.

"A number of schools have been closed previously by police, ostensibly acting on instructions from the minister because of his attitude to their fees. The Education Act did not permit that action and the State also conceded that none of the arrests then were justified," ATS chairman Mr Jameson Timba said in his founding affidavit.

The schools said they were alarmed by Cde Chigwedere's statements in Parliament when he said he was giving non-government schools two weeks to regularise their position regarding fees for the term, failure of which they would face prosecution.

Mr Timba said there was no provision in the Education Act where it was stipulated that applications for reviewing school fees should be made for the coming term.

Mr Timba said the minister's statements in Parliament implied that he would start the prosecution of non-government schools without taking the relevant legal steps.

"The minister's parliamentary statement, with its goal threats and very short timeline, implied that he would start some prosecutions under subsection 7 of section 21 of the amended Act without waiting for all the prior steps required by subsections (1) to (6) of that same section to be duly completed first."

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