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What are we going to do Mum?
Cathy Buckle
May 08, 2004

Copyright Cathy Buckle 8th May 2004.

One week into the new school term my 11 year old son, along with 30 000 other Zimbabwean children was still sitting at home. His school was one of 45 private schools that were not allowed to open this week under orders from the Ministry of Education. It has been the week from hell which began for me a little before 5pm on Monday the 3rd of May. My son's friend is a border and I was to drop him at the school hostel late in the afternoon. We arrived to find the hostel gates closed and children and parents milling around outside in the gathering dusk. There were many desperate faces and raised voices. A man came to the window of my car and said "You are not allowed in, the school is closed." He handed me a letter signed by the Headmistress which read:" Under direction from the Minister of Education in Harare, the police have closed our school down. We do not know when we will be allowed to open." It took some persuading to get the man at the gate to let me in to collect a trunk, bedding and tuck (sweets and food) which had been left at the school earlier that day. The order to close the school had only been made late in the afternoon, hours after many children had been dropped off by parents.

I drove away in shock, my heart pounding, tears in my eyes. This felt like that day in February 2000 when war veterans had come to our farm gate and announced that this was now their farm. I had to stop the car half way home, not to pull myself together but to tell my son and his friend to stop raiding the sweets they had extricated from the school trunk! By Wednesday the propaganda had reached hateful levels. Education Minister Chigwedere said that he had closed "racist schools" which "throw Africans out simply by hiking their fees". He did not say that the enrolment of Zimbabwe's private schools is made up of 80% black children or that virtually all Zimbabwe's government ministers and civil servants send their children to private schools. He did not say that President Mugabe's own children attend private schools in Zimbabwe. He did not say that school fees have gone up because of hyper-inflation. As it is with everything in Zimbabwe, clearly it was easier to not address the real issues and their causes but to yet again play that ugly racist card.

On Wednesday the Headmistress of my son's school was arrested, at night, from a prayer group meeting and spent the night in a police cell. She heads a small non-profit making Christian school which has only 7 white children in its entire establishment. The school was still closed and two policemen continued to patrol the road in front of the school's closed gates. Driving past the Marondera Police Station my son and I saw our town's only anaesthetist, who is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Richard's school, locked in an open holding cell in the police camp, he too had been arrested. I was crying and my son's lip was quivering. "What have my school done wrong Mum? Why don't they like us?" he asked, "It's just like on the farm again. What are we going to do Mum?" I could not answer any of his questions.

This scene was being played out across Zimbabwe and as the Minister yelled "racism" the children became more and more traumatized. All private schools were told that unless they signed a "Certificate of Compliance" in which they agreed to a number of regulations, including massively reduced school fees, they would be taken over by the government and nationalized. This comes at a time when Zimbabwe's inflation hovers at around 600%, electricity charges have gone up by 400%, rates and water by 500% and in the same week as the price of a loaf of bread went up by 50%.

The closure of Zimbabwe's private schools has nothing whatsoever to do with the colour of our children's skins. It also has nothing whatsoever to do with the school fees which are only increased if a majority of the parent body agree to the rises, which they had done. The closure of Zimbabwe's private schools has everything to do with red herrings, smoke screens and politics. 30 000 children who can afford to go to school were denied their basic human right to do so this week. Hundreds of thousands of other children who cannot afford to go to either private or government schools continue to play on our streets. Some used to go to farm schools which ceased to exist when farms were taken over. Others used to go to government schools but with inflation at 600%, food comes before reading and writing. The private schools will re-open but on unsustainable budgets and none of us know how long they will be able to pay their bills or keep their teachers.

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