Back to Index

The state of the education sector: General decay and escalating harassment
Promise Mkwananzi, Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU)
October 16, 2007

The last few months have presented a very bleak future for the education sector in Zimbabwe. The government seems to be clueless on how to rescue the ailing giants of Zimbabwe's source of pride one of the best education systems in Africa, let alone moved by this recession in the development of the country. The government has lost focus on what and where primary attention should be devoted. Both education and health have been relegated to secondary level on government`s list of priorities, if not peripheral. Hence, no due concern has been directed towards the maintenance and upgrading of standards and facilities and anyone who has dared mention these issues has been at the mercy of brutal suppression and retribution. Many of us have paid dearly for speaking against the decay and harassment, including some of our illustrious brothers who have had to pay the ultimate price: Batanai Hadzizi and Lameck Chemvura, who both died at the hands of the Robert Mugabe Regime, among millions of other innocent and unarmed civilians of course whom we all know about. However, today the detention of Edison Hlatshwayo is a case in point and it is the one which has triggered this reflection.

It is common cause that the education system in Zimbabwe has deteriorated enormously. The major question we all should pose to ask is what has caused this poignant development. Clearly, it is the government's lack of strategic coherence and prioritisation mechanism. In a choice between channelling resources towards the development and sustenance of the country`s priority focus areas like education, health and poverty eradication and retention and consolidation of its position through oiling state security organs with large sums of money in the annual budgetary allocations, the Leviathan has opted for the latter, somehow, forgetting, in their idiosyncratic overview that the people's support is best maintained by providing them all that is of primary and basic concern to their daily livelihoods and sustenance. In this regard, the Regime takes the cup in complete idiocy; they have learnt nothing and forgot nothing.

The patches which are emerging as a result of government`s warped choices are too glaring for all to see, and futile attempts to cover them by arresting those that point at the patches only make the public and the international community all the more aware that there is a problem. The unfortunate arrest and illegal detention of Edison Hlatshwayo has drawn widespread condemnation just as did the attacks of the March 11 Marchers. These detentions and harassments have been completely unnecessary and a smart government could have simply allowed them to pass without any incidences. Unfortunately, the ZANU PF moronic Bigots are too afraid to face the full wrath of the people because they know the crimes which they have committed against the people ranging from theft, mass killings, illegal detentions and torture, demolitions of people`s homes and many others. Robert Mugabe and his Henchmen are surely candidates for trials against humanity at the international criminal court in The Hague, Netherlands. Lest they forget, Charles Taylor, Slobodan Milosevic and many other perpetrators of crimes against humanity are being/have been tried and sentenced.

Student's harassment is on the spiral. National University of Science and Technology (NUST) student's leaders are all just fresh from an illegal detention. Student Leaders in Mutare were recently denied accommodation on the basis that they are aligned to ZINASU. Mehluli Dube (NUST), a mere student leader`s treason charges, perhaps more than all exemplifies how much this revolution has begun to consume its own children. Lovemore Chinoputsa and Fortune Chamba, both from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) were also brutally tortured for simply enquiring when students would be returned to their halls of residence, from which they were abruptly evicted early this year. Again no explanation was offered. Professor Levy Nyagura, who will go down as the most cruel Vice Chancellor since the inception of the university can still afford a descent sleep without knowing where the children from the institution over which he presides lay their heads in these cold and rainy nights, where crime is ever on the increase because of the intensification of unmitigated hunger and poverty, arising out of high unemployment and spiralling inflation. Is he in intellectual hibernation? Tendai Biti would ask.

The effects of removing students from their halls of residence have been overstated since the eviction madness started; however, for the purposes of emphatic repetition it is prudent to restate them. Campus life is an essential part of University's ideology, the world over. Therefore, universities oblige students to live o n Campus during the course of their studies. All students live on campus and form a community that is not limited to the classroom. Campus life is an essential part of University`s philosophy. Students come from varied backgrounds, and living together provides unique opportunities for them to learn from each other's experiences. Through a wide range of on-campus organizations, special interest committees and contests, students are encouraged to actively participate in campus life thereby developing them not only into academic experts but also into individuals that can function and find themselves in a community of other individuals and be able to stand on their two feet. Not to mention the convenience of having to avoid transport blues and the hustles of seeking descent accommodation and other numerous benefits that have always been the foundation of campus life in universities the world over. The exiguous budgetary allocations on education have mad campus life, not only unsustainable but apparently impossible and illegal. We have seen the reincarnation of these unfortunate occurrences in the lower levels of our education system, exacerbated by the continued and uncontained power and water cuts which have only spared Robert Mugabe and close friends in his oligarchy. The Shortwave Radio Africa (SWRadio) reported that:

''Ordinary level students from Kuwadzana 1 High School's Food and Nutrition class were asked by their teachers to bring "water and portable stoves" from home to Kuwadzana 2 High school, that had power. But according to our correspondent, Simon Muchemwa, facilities at Kuwadzana 2 proved to be inadequate to cope with the needs of all students, leading to some having to sit the test the following day and others, as late as Sunday.

Demonstrating the shambles the Zimbabwean education system has become, teachers and students were seen carrying "two-plate" stoves and containers of water as they frantically sought an alternative venue for the examinations. Questions have also been raised about the integrity of the entire examination, as it is feared that some students may have learned of its contents, from friends sitting for the same paper at different schools.''

In conclusion, it is clear why the government through its state agents is anxious to crush and silence every voice that beacons. Their doomed strategy is to cow the people into submission, a strategy which failed the very day it was conceived. The continued harassment of student leaders and activists and the detention of Edison is to us a symbol of victory and peaceful resistance. The more Edison and anyone else is kept as a prisoner of conscience, the more reason there is for us to unite and fight together until we free ourselves. We celebrate and honour the courage and resilience of all the comrades who have been on the frontline, fighting with all their hearts to keep the dream of education alive. The message is that the Leviathan is at its lowest ebb. Their hands are full of blood and it will never wash away. Together we will secure the freedom of Edison and together we will reclaim our sovereign right to descent affordable education. The students are prepared.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP