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Schools closure
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-18
Monday May 3^rd - Sunday May 9^th 2004

The docile manner in which the government-controlled media, particularly ZBC, covered the government’s use of the police to enforce its closure of private schools it accused of massively hiking school fees further underscored the extent to which the authorities have transformed these media into unquestioning conduits of racial bigotry.

The government broadcaster allowed Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere to claim – without substantiation – that private schools were "racist" and were therefore increasing fees to discriminate against black people.

The broadcaster’s complicity in this regard was more pronounced in the way it regurgitated these claims without subjecting them to any analysis or balancing them with comments from the affected parents and the school authorities on the reasons behind the increased fees.

Notably, Zimpapers’ publications, which usually adopt a similar stance to ZBC on topical issues, initially steered clear of Chigwedere’s unproven racial claims and preferred to carry factual, fair and relatively balanced event reports on the matter. Thus, unlike their electronic counterpart, the papers also quoted the affected parents’ condemnation of the closures. However, by the end of the week their "independent" stance was brought into line following more racist remarks made by Chigwedere on ZTV’s Face the Nation programme. Opinion pieces in the Chronicle (8/5), the Sunday News and The Sunday Mail (9/5) unquestioningly echoed Chigwedere’s allegations and called for tougher action against the schools.

Like ZBC, the government papers did not fully discuss the legality of the government action.

The private media however, categorically condemned the schools’ closure as illegal since the Education Act, which the authorities and the media they control used to justify the shutdowns, has no provision for this action.

As news of government’s closure of the 45 private schools emerged in The Herald (4/5), ZTV (4/5, 6pm) tried to justify the move saying it was meant to "preserve the gains made by government in the education sector since independence". The station and Power FM (4/5, 8pm) then quoted Chigwedere contriving a racial factor to defend the illegal shutdown. Citing St George’s College and Peterhouse as examples, Chigwedere described the private schools as "racist schools" which wanted "to throw the black majority out of education" and added that, "government won’t hesitate to deal with this racist attitude".

To give the government action a seal of public approval, ZTV (4/5, 8pm) then conducted street interviews with selected members of the public and claimed that most parents had condemned the fee hikes because they felt the move was aimed at discriminating against "the black majority and move back to the era when some schools were meant for whites only." No comment was sought from the schools’ authorities. Neither did the broadcaster try to relate the fee increases to the runaway cost of living. Instead, it quoted Chigwedere downplaying this by allowing him to claim that the "Prices of most goods are going down."

But Studio 7 (5/5) and The Standard (9/5) disputed this. The Standard noted that school fees, like everything else in Zimbabwe, had risen because of "the abnormal economic environment" caused by "Zanu PF’s skewed policies," while Studio 7 quoted University of Zimbabwe educationist Fred Zindi saying the fees hikes were made "to counter inflation" and allow the schools to continue to offer high quality education. Zindi dismissed Chigwedere’s claims that private schools were racist saying Zimbabwe’s white population is "very small and the majority of the pupils in those schools are black…" Though most of these schools are run by whites, he added, "it is not the (white) principals who make these increases but the PTAs (Parents and Teachers Associations)…" Teachers who were also quoted on the same bulletin agreed, saying, "more than 70% of their students are black".

Some corroboration of these claims appeared in The Herald (6/5). The paper quoted parents as having told Chigwedere that 80 percent of children enrolled at private schools were blacks thereby "significantly exceeding" government’s stipulated quota of 60 percent. The paper also deviated from its usual passivity when reporting government policies by quoting parents condemning the closure. The authorities should "raise standards at its own schools" rather than "focusing on closing private schools", said one parent. Similar views appeared in The Herald (5/5) and even The Sunday Mail.

But the public broadcaster refused to exercise even this minimal professional standard. Rather, it meekly provided Chigwedere (ZTV’s Face the Nation (6/5, 9.30pm) with an unbridled platform to divert public attention from the real issues bedeviling the education sector in Zimbabwe by allowing him to dabble in racial and nationalist rhetoric.

Said Chigwedere, fully exposing the source of deep-seated racial hatred that has characterized Zimbabwean politics for the past four years: "These schools… are the factories that manufacture the Rhodesians. At any rate, look at their history; they were established by the Rhodesian regime to produce future Rhodesian leaders and they have remained Rhodesian to this day. And the ownership is foreign, it is British. The very war that we are fighting against Britain is the very war we are fighting against these schools… this is another front of the racist war that we are fighting".

Instead of subjecting these absurd allegations to analysis, the Chronicle (8/5), Sunday News and The Sunday Mail rehashed and approved such insidious racism. For example, the Chronicle’s Busybody column, notable for its crude attacks against perceived government opponents, celebrated government’s crackdown on the schools, describing them as an "extension of apartheid". The column claimed that "whites" established "whites only" schools after realizing "that they could not practice racism in independent Zimbabwe", adding that it "liked" Chigwedere’s comments.

The Sunday News’s Goings-On column also welcomed the closure saying "little Rhodesians" were "unacceptable" while The Sunday Mail’s Tafataona Mahoso likened government’s action to the "Third Chimurenga", which would prevent private schools from producing "another bunch of Rhodies in African skin".

These papers however, conveniently ignored the fact that not all the closed private schools are white-owned, as illustrated by Tynwald Primary School, owned by retired army commander, Vitalis Zvinavashe.

Eventually however, the schools’ response to their closure obliged the media to reveal the illegal nature of government’s action. ZTV (6/5, 8pm), The Herald and the Zimbabwe Independent (7/5) reported that the High Court, with the consent of the State, had ordered the reopening of Hartmann House Preparatory School, which had filed an urgent application against the government’s action.

The Herald and the Zimbabwe Independent also revealed that other private schools in Masvingo and Bulawayo had also filed court applications seeking to nullify the closure.

The Independent quoted the schools’ lawyer, Richard Majwabu-Moyo, saying, "There is no provision in the Education Act that gives the Minister of Education powers to shut down schools for raising fees and what he has done is illegal."

The Standard and Studio 7 (6/5) quoted other legal experts making similar observations.

Despite this, ZBC (6/5, 8pm), The Herald and the Zimbabwe Independent (7/5) still reported the police as having arrested some of the school headmasters accused of unilaterally hiking fees.

Unlike the Independent however, The Herald did not name some of the arrested headmasters or their schools. Rather, it only revealed that those arrested in Marondera had paid deposit fines after signing admission of guilt forms and quoted police spokesman Andrew Phiri saying the police "were enforcing the laws that exist and we will continue to do so until everyone complies…" The paper did not question this falsehood.

Studio 7 (6/5), however, quoted Harare lawyer Simon Ziva saying there are no legal provisions for such arrests as private school staffers "do no fall under the essential category in terms of the Public Service Act."

But the authorities’ disdain for the law and their continued abuse of office to formulate self-serving legislation without regard to other people’s freedoms was clearly demonstrated by Chigwedere’s remarks on ZTV’s Face The Nation. Chigwedere pointed out that government would circumvent the law by amending the Education Act so as to legitimize its demands on private schools. Citing the Hartmann court victory, he said private schools might "win (court cases) because they have exploited a loophole somewhere. In two, three weeks, we will have plugged the hole. They discover another one and exploit it, six months thereafter, we plug the hole… there is no way they can win…"

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