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The forbidden fruit
Zimbabwe
National Students Union (ZINASU)
June 29, 2010
Like the Biblical fruit
that Adam and Eve were prohibited to munch by Jehovah in the Garden
of Eden, cadetship must not be an avenue for students who cannot
afford, to get the required amount of financial resources to pay
for their education. The government should not capitalize on students'
poverty thereby creating slaves out of the intelligentsia. In addition,
the poverty that has struck the masses today was not of their own
making but was manufactured by the corrupt government of the yester
years and that of today.
Cadetship bonds students
who would have 'benefited' from the facility for the years similar
to the duration of the programme that one has studied. This clause
of the bonding contract has failed to pass the reasonable man's
test as common sense cannot be applied to it. It does not matter
whether the government has paid for your education for a single
year or two but will be bonded for four years if your area of study
is a four year programme.
According to the cadetship
contract students are forced to work in the Public Service thereby
violating the right to choose an employer of your own choice. Furthermore,
it restricts one to work in Zimbabwe for an employer who is well-known
for paying paltry salaries i.e. the government of the Republic of
Zimbabwe. The ill-advised government boasts about the cadetship
being an apparatus to reduce brain drain, but alas the economic
environment will force one to cross borders. Chinhoyi University
of Technology has proved Mudenge the Minister of Higher and Tertiary
Education and cohorts wrong as they have embarked on a research
on how best the syndrome of brain drain can be reduced as the cadetship
has proved to be disastrous.
Under the cadetship scheme
one is obliged to pay a third of his /her monthly earnings upon
securing a job for a period that he/she will be bonded. This defies
logic in the sense that one for instance earns US$3000 has to pay
a US$1000 per month to the government whilst the later was paying
US$350 for a semester which is four months, thus becoming daylight
robbery by the government from its own citizens. To propound further
it means that former students whose fees were paid by cadetship
would pay different amounts depending on their monthly earnings
despite acquiring the same benefits.
Mudenge lied that cadetship
would cater for college fees and other learning related expenses,
whilst it caters for tuition only with the student being required
to pay the additional fees charged by institutions. A student at
the National University of Science and Technology in the faculty
of commerce is charged US$375 in total but cadetship will only pay
US$300 with the student being required to pay off the remaining
balance of US$75.
The utterances
made by Mbizvo in the Herald of 28 June 2010 amount to a vomit of
nothingness, as he has proved to the students' community beyond
reasonable doubt that he is an alien to the tertiary education fraternity.
On average 7% of the students that apply for the cadetship receive
the funds, it is surprising for someone expected to be a Permanent
Secretary to make false alarms to the world that they are catering
for 12000 University
of Zimbabwe students. What is the total enrollment of that institution?
The scheme is wrong in principle and lacks adequate funding.
ZINASU shall
not heed to the malicious, frivolous and vexatious utterances made
by Mbizvo which do not amount to anything near warnings but indicate
extreme levels of desperation. The union shall proceed to advocate
for the re-introduction of the revolving loan and grant scheme.
The 'Learn now Pay back later' scheme should be adequately financed
and properly implemented. ZINASU has relocated to 10 Hillary Drive,
Emerald Hill in Harare
Visit the ZINASU
fact
sheet
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