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 Home Campaigns Human Rights in Zimbabwe News
Education in Crisis12 April 2006The education system in Zimbabwe used to be African’s finest and one of Mugabe’s greatest achievements. It was the pride of Africa. By the late 1990s, Zimbabwe had a higher percentage of literate people than any other country on the continent. According to a survey of UNICEF, the adult literacy rate in Zimbabwe was 94% for males and 86% for females, whereas in the neighboring country Mozambique only 64% of the men and 31% of the women are able to read and write. But today, schools and universities are in crisis - economic collapse and political interference as well as the HIV pandemic and the malicious destruction of livelihoods in the government's 'restore order' campaign are having devastating impacts. While 90% of the Zimbabwean children went to primary school in 2000 - the highest attendance in Africa -, this figure has plummeted to only 65% in 2003. This represents a social catastrophe, the impact of which will be with Zimbabwe for decades. Firstly, there is the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which is degrading the supply and quality of education, and may disrupt schooling for a whole generation of children. Zimbabwe has the fourth highest prevalence rate of HIV in the world. Due to the pandemic, children have to cope with the worsening attrition and absenteeism of their teachers. Each infected teacher will lose, on average, six months of professional time before and an additional twelve months after developing Aids-related illness. In addition, thousands of teachers die each year as a result of their AIDS infection. According to the UNICEF 86.000 Zimbabwean children lost their education personnel in the year 1999 alone. But the pandemic has a negative impact on school enrolment as well. Children of AIDS-affected households are far less likely to get a proper education. In Zimbabwe, this concerns almost one million children, who have been orphaned. Either they are forced to work while attending school, which negatively affects their performance in class or they even have to drop out, unable to meet the high costs of their education. A survey in 2003 showed that orphans are 10 to 30% less likely to be in school than children who still have their parents; and this gap is widening. In 2005 the educational sector has been hit very hard by the disastrous effects of the 'Operation Murambatsvina'. The campaign, which was launched by the government to destroy supposedly illegal structures, made hundreds of thousands of people homeless and is therefore popularly referred to as 'Operation Tsunami'. According to a UN report, over 200,000 school age children were directly affected by it, as it took place in the middle of the academic/school year. The children's parents, who had lost their livelihoods due to Murambatsvina, were often no longer able to meet the costs of their children's education. They could no longer afford to pay school fees or the costs of transport to school. Another problem is that many schools were deemed as illegal and destroyed during the operation. The schools still standing had to refuse pupils because of overcrowding. Furthermore, many displaced children are no longer in their original school catchment areas and have no ready or affordable means of transportation. Many teachers have been displaced as well and are consequently unable to get to work, thus compromising the quality of services offered in remaining schools. Even in or near the transit camps, which were erected for the affected population soon after the operation had been launched, there are currently no education facilities. Unfortunately the government has discovered the importance of the educational sector for its political campaigns. Consequently, academic freedom has been restricted and teachers as well as students have been hit by a wave of political violence. The higher learning institutes, for example, are subject to state influence, according to the US State Department's Annual Report on Human Rights Practices for 2005. Intelligence service personnel took faculty members and other staff and pose as students to intimidate and gather intelligence on students who might protest government actions. Students who dare to protest - for example against the unfair fee hikes, leading to education being a preserve of the rich - are arrested and charged under Zimbabwe's tough security laws as well as expelled for life from the university. Teachers are targeted too. The Zimbabwean government believes that teachers tend to be opposition supporters and use political violence to intimidate them, particularly in more remote rural areas. Government thugs or the youth militia often storm into schools and force the teachers to teach more 'patriotic' material by assaulting or even raping them in front of class. Many teachers see no way out and flee the country. According to the head of the teachers' union, Raymond Majongwe, who has been a victim to political violence himself, at least 10.000 qualified teachers have left in recent years for political and economic reasons, hoping to make a better living in South Africa, Britain or Australia. The economic collapse of Zimbabwe, described by the World Bank as unprecedented in a country not at war, is another factor in the decline of the educational system. Teachers as well as pupils and students are struggling with hyper-inflation, which leads to exorbitant price increases. The fees for public schools and universities have become unaffordable for average Zimbabwean families. The new fees for universities - for example - are unbelievably 10 times more than those for last year. Children of rural villagers cannot afford these escalating fees and are forced to drop out. Even the transport fares have become an insurmountable burden for people, who are already struggling with daily survival. Some children can afford to attend class only twice a week, because transport costs have been rising steadily since last year due to fuel shortages. According to the Zimbabwean teacher's union, 'classes are empty' as only a faction of the whole class is able to turn up. This situation has the terrible side effect to make girls more vulnerable to exploitation, exchanging sexual favours for cash to raise money for their fees or fares, or just for a free ride to school by a taxi driver. This transactional sex carries risks of HIV. Economic hardships have not spared the teachers. Once a highly regarded position in Zimbabwe, the teaching profession has sunk to low levels after six years of economic recession. Their salaries are so low, that they cannot even buy decent clothing. To make ends meet, teachers resort to coping mechanisms. Some of them started selling home-made cakes and sweets to their pupils; some have just substituted meat with bush mice, and cabbages with wild vegetables. Remaining are millions of children and adolescents, deprived of the right to education, proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Unless Zimbabwe can replace the dictatorship and begin a period of democratization and reconstruction, the country's youth face a sad future.Contact Details Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA Ph: (02) 9264 9343 Fax: (02) 9261 1118 office@apheda.org.au Human Rights in Zimbabwe News
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