Back to Index

Revival, recovery or stagnation
Students Solidarity Trust
February 24, 2012

Upon attainment of independence in 1980, the Zimbabwean government realized the need to increase the number of education centers around the country. Outlying and remote areas where folk found it tenuous to go to school got a shot in the arm as primary and secondary schools were built. The logic for such a seemingly expensive enterprise was to ensure that no Zimbabwean child would be left behind and therefore unable to learn and make a contribution to the nation. It also lay in the value of education and its transcending of the socio-economic, political and cultural make up of any successful country. With a highly educated and literate population, a country is able to take great leaps forward in several facets of its development. It is able to dictate its path to development and ensure that citizens do not suffer as a result. The policy to maintain infrastructure and provide teachers to go with the newly built schools continued in the nascent Zimbabwe as everyone strove to ensure that the country's foundation to development was sound. Teacher training and technical colleges became critical centers of idea generation and the emergence of an academia. Due to inadequate local capacity, Zimbabwe formed alliances with countries like Cuba which saw the Latin American communist country send its expert doctors and teachers to teach medicine, mathematics and science amongst other subjects. Fortunate Zimbabweans in the said fields also got an opportunity to receive part or all of their training in Cuba as government was determined to ensure equilibrium between the available education centers and the personnel to teach and administer these institutions. In addition, universities and colleges established exchange programs with institutions from Europe and America and this enhanced the local capacity and also assisted in technology transfer. Expectations were high that with such dedication of personnel and resources at the highest possible levels Zimbabwe would in no time achieve its potential.

However, any hopes and expectations Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans had were quickly extinguished from the late 80s. Universities and colleges became centers of persecution and prosecution instead of centers of idea generation and open debate where a variety of thoughts would be entertained without fear. This muzzling of the intelligentsia coincided or occurred as a result of a dictatorship that was starting to emerge and spread its tentacles. Dissenting voices to the way the country was being ruled started receiving short shrift as a paranoid leadership sort to evade public scrutiny. This was despite scandals such as the shameful and as yet unexplained Willowgate episode rocking the nation at that time.

The introduction of the economic structural adjustment program in the 90s did not help. In fact, it started to reverse the gains that had been made the previous decade by introducing mass privatization of colleges and the withdrawal of resources from the education sector which was not yet ready at the time to have its oxygen supply cut. It was farcical, unfortunate and comical that as the structural adjustment program prescribed job cuts across the economy especially in the public sector, the same program also was prescribing privatization of such essential services as education. The question all and sundry asked was how were retrenched parents and guardians going to afford increased tuition? Coupled with the determination by the increasingly paranoid government to quash all dissenting ideas, education was left in the mire.

The beginning of the twenty-first century only sort to hasten the mothballing of infrastructure at education centers nationwide. Zimbabwe's authorities started to pay attention to security of person and not security of nation. Resources were continuously withdrawn from service sectors preferring to dedicate them to security ministries. Teachers and other education practitioners left in droves as conditions plummeted and their security was no longer guaranteed in parts of the country. The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe noted that eight teachers lost their lives in 2008 alone as the country descended into election related violence.

The restoration of hope brought about by the consummation of the inclusive government in 2009 was short lived as the sector continues to experience financial woes. As Zimbabwe marks the third anniversary of this inclusive arrangement, the education sector continues to be characterized by sharp policy differences which have emerged. For instance, the ministry of higher and tertiary education and the ministry of finance have publicly disagreed on whether to reintroduce loans and grants or continue with a cadetship scheme started a few years ago. In the 2011 and 2012 budgets, the minister of finance provided for funds to go to a loans and grants arrangement he had initiated with banks willing to participate. However, the minister of higher and tertiary education recently told a parliamentary portfolio committee on education that government owed colleges for the cadetship schemes. Such disagreements have gridlocked implementation and have meant the continued suffering of the students as haggling goes on unabated.

Education has proved from time immemorial to be a foundational cornerstone to any meaningful development and it is those countries who have built atop this foundation who continue to be successful. It is therefore critically important for government officials to stop wrangling and come up with permanent solutions to revitalize the education system and restore the hope and faith once invested in the sector.

Visit the Students Solidarity Trust fact sheet

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