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"All we need is a decent education"
Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU)
May 17, 2007

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The Zimbabwe National Students Union do hereby publish a report on a comprehensive research on the rate of college drop outs and incidence of students victimisation, that was carried out in Zimbabwe's higher and tertiary institutions by ZINASU.

Executive summary

Zimbabwe National Students' Union (ZINASU) commissioned this research to assess how the fees charged at Zimbabwe's tertiary institutions of Harare, Mashonaland, Manicaland, Masvingo, Midlands and Bulawayo have impacted on the welfare of students and to establish the patterns and effects of student victimization. The research follows years of the Zimbabwe government's systematic withdrawal of its educational assistance to tertiary students that have culminated in the commercialization of most aspects of student welfare. Reports that ZINASU constantly receives about students or their leaders being victimized by staff of their institutions or officials of specific government arms prompted the second component of the research.

The study was predominantly participatory, but combining interactively qualitative and conventional quantitative techniques to gather primary data. In this respect a structured questionnaire was administered on 202 respondents from 11 institutions in all ZINASU regions but Manicaland. Open interviews of key informants and focus group discussions complemented the questionnaire while field visits were exploited to observe what students exactly experienced. The Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) was employed to analyze quantitative data gathered with the aid of the structured questionnaire while qualitative information was analyzed manually in line with the broad research themes around which chapters 3 to 5 of this report and their constituent sections are structured. Manicaland could not be covered because the study coincided with the closure of institutions in that region. Budget limitations did not permit the study to explore other information sources suggested in the initial proposal, such as civic institutions concerned with student welfare. It remains encouraging, though, that students, the primary beneficiaries of the research, provided the information in this report.

The major expenses of tertiary education include but are not limited to tuition fees, accommodation, transport, food, academic obligations and miscellaneous requirements such as clothing, cosmetics, hair do and so forth. In the face of these costs amid limited or no government financial assistance, the study revealed that tertiary education was extremely expensive and very few could afford it. The list and amount of educational expenses vary from one institution to another subject to the sophistication of learning systems at each. According to this study, education is most expensive and its requirements most diverse at universities and least in these respects at teacher training colleges. Scientific and technological studies cost more than arts and commercial subjects. In line with this, university students recorded overall expenditures ranging from $50,000 to more than $3,000,000 per semester as at December 2006. Technical colleges recorded between $50,000 and $1,000,000 while teacher-training college students generally spent between $100,000 and $500,000. Only 3% of this study's informants received government support while 70% to 79% depended on relatives for educational finance. Fifty-four percent of these parents were sacrificially capable of supporting their dependents, having to forego certain basic requirements to do so. Social costs that came with the privatization of tertiary education included limited or no entertainment facilities or programmes and squalid living conditions, making the overall educational costs unbearable. To cope with this reality some predominantly male students sold various merchandise to fellow students to generate additional pocket money while negatively enterprising female students resorted to prostitution for similar reasons. Sharing food
All we need is a decent education: ZINASU study on effects of fees increases and incidence of student victimization at Zimbabwe's tertiary learning institutions among friends and foregoing some meals to save money emerged additional survival strategies. Others went too far enough to break the law by stealing and dealing in forbidden drugs, notably mbanje, just to make ends meet. This has made tertiary learning institutions high risk spots as far as the spread of HIV and AIDS is concerned. Indeed 95% of blood collected from female students at Midlands State University MSU by the Blood Transfusion services was reportedly contaminated with HIV. Reports of unwanted pregnancies and subsequent abortions in Gweru-based institutions were worrying especially because they signify rampant unprotected sexual encounters between partners of loose relationships that characterize these places.

The study used personal and witnessed experiences of students to define victimization and established that it is the infringement of one's rights to prevent him/her from or in retaliation to his/her utterances, beliefs, attitudes or actions. Victimization is not used to protect legitimate acts but corrupt, wrong or controversial practices, which if discovered, are punishable. The following are types of victimization that exist at tertiary institutions of learning in Zimbabwe according to this study:

a. Punitive victimization - the infliction of pain through acts like expulsion or suspension from college, fining, arrests and/or physical assault, usually executed in retaliation to specific behaviors such as student activism

b. Manipulative victimization - the manipulation of systems to force the victim to think in certain ways or concede to a given line of thinking (e.g., marking a student's exam unjustly to force him/her to give in to the victimizer's sexual demands)

c. Legislative victimization - the introduction of repressive laws to justify or legalize other forms of victimization (e.g., the Public Order and Security Act is being used to justify the denial of citizens' freedoms of association and expression)

d. Victimization by deprivation - the withdrawal of some basic rights from the victim to weaken him/her in an attempt to prevent future confrontation (e.g., the government's withdrawal of educational assistance and closure of social facilities such as beer outlets at which they could meet to organize themselves)

e. Victimization by intimidation - the use of threats of death, torture, arrests and expulsion to silence the victim who otherwise can be vocal.

The study revealed that manipulative victimization was commonest at teacher-training colleges and MSU while punitive victimization and intimidation happened at universities more than at other institutions. All types of institutions suffered the consequences of deprivation and legislative victimization while politics emerged the commonest cause of victimization.

In all its forms victimization had increased fear, fury and hopelessness among students, who also reported losing their self esteem and pride in being called Zimbabweans. Many respondents were considering joining tertiary institutions outside Zimbabwe. HIV and AIDS, unwanted pregnancies and abortions resulted from manipulative victimization of female students.

As the way forward this research advises the government, ZINASU, civil society and students as follows:

• The government should change its attitude towards students and put politics aside to rehabilitate tertiary institutions and save them from further collapse by reintroducing generous financial assistance and providing catering and housekeeping personnel. When it revises fees it should inform guardians on sufficient notice to allow them sufficient room for requisite preparations.

• Through the National AIDS Council (NAC), tertiary students should be more actively engaged in programmes to arrest the further spread of the HIV and AIDS at their institutions.Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as World Vision-Zimbabwe, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Capernaum Foundation, Streets Ahead, Practical Action and Students Solidarity Trust are commended for their support to some students and invited to increase such support. ZINASU should invite additional relief agencies to complement these, especially by providing affordable food that students so desperately need.

• Tertiary students in general and university students in particular should focus on repairing their public image through responsible activism, which may involve but not limited to the following steps:

  a. refraining from ranting their anger on innocent civilians each time they demonstrate
  b. discouraging drunkenly misjudged behaviors such as publicly shouting obscenities against innocent passersby and violence against each other (e.g., boyfriends assaulting their spouses)
  c. refraining from crime such as shoplifting, trading in or consuming drugs

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