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Education and the 2010 national budget
Students Solidarity Trust
December 04, 2009

On the 2nd of December, the Minister of education presented the 2010 national budget. This budget has been hailed as developmental and growth oriented. In presenting the budget, the Minister of Finance Tendai Biti noted that it will deal with the socio-economic challenges facing the nation challenges through the vehicle of "reconstruction with Equitable Growth and Stability which will be a "pro-poor, broad based and inclusive development framework" with a strong emphasis on the key issues of education, health and social services and the continuation of a strict and disciplined macro-economic stabilization programme." The Minister noted that the country had already started noting positive moves towards the resumption of normalcy in the education sector through the clearing of the 2008 examinations backlog and the timely marking of Grade 7 examinations without downplaying the massive challenges that still face the sector in endeavoring to improve service delivery to the levels prior to the economic challenges. He noted that teaching and learning are taking place under the most difficult conditions on account of shortages of teaching and learning materials, including equipment. In this light USD 13.8 was allocated to education and this will be complimented by cooperating partners who are set to avail a sum of US$28.150 million under the Education Transition Fund. To enable Education Officers to effectively supervise schools and colleges, the Minister set aside USD1.320 million for the procurement of vehicles. US$7.827 was set aside for the rehabilitation of schools infrastructure including provision of sanitation and hygiene facilities.

On the contentious issue of public examinations, the Minister concurred that the standards of Zimbabwe's national examinations have been compromised and the credibility questioned due to the problems encountered relating to availability of examination materials as well as setting, marking and publishing of the results. To halt the downward spiral, the Government will initiate reforms at the local examining body, ZIMSEC, and seek to bring other independent players to assist.

To curb the pervasive problem of school drop outs due to the insistent harsh economic environment, the Minister proposed to allocate an amount of US$23 million towards social protection programmes under the Ministry of Labour and Social Services. The allocation will go towards supporting 160 000 secondary school students under the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) basing on US$30 per student per term with cooperating partners providing up to US$25 million to support 625 000 primary school going children.

The total allocation to education in the budget was US$107.8 million. Set against what the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture requested for a complete overhaul of the education system, this is roughly 10% of the USD 1 billion requested. This might seem like a drop in the ocean; however this budget is a departure from yester years where the education sector got the crumbs from what the defense ministry would have gulped. This time, the budget showed considerable bias towards service ministries and uplifting the lives of the generality of the people. The huge chunk of the money allocated to BEAM will go a long way towards assisting the vulnerable and disadvantaged students who in previous years lacked a cushion against the economic hardships. The allocation going to the provision of hygiene and sanitation in schools and colleges is a positive move especially for the female students who lacked basic sanitary ware and toilets with necessary disposal equipment. The 2010 budget has the capacity to set alight the torch that will light the path to recovery for the education sector.

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