An Education Sector Fallen From Grace.

As the schools open this week with the economic situation in Zimbabwe getting worse by the day TAPIWA ZIVIRA AND MELODY CHAITWA take a critical look into the state of the crucial education sector that has since been forgotten by the Robert Mugabe regime

Justin Mutume*, a teacher at a rural secondary school in Shamva wakes up daily at 5 a.m and walks to a pig farm nearby where he is assigned to brush-clean pigs that are to be slaughtered for a few hours.
At the end of the week he is given his incentive of a bag of maize.
“I went to a teacher's college years ago thinking that I was to live a dignified life and sustain my family but now I am doing this dirty work because my salary can no longer afford to buy food for my family, I have since lost my dignity as a teacher in a community,” said Mutume.
But as the schools open Mutume, who is a father of three, has to talk to his “second boss” to give him work shifts that will suit his time at school.
Yet another teacher, identified as Chihota, is brewing skokiian, a one-day home made brew, at his school home in Bindura to sell to local guzzlers in order to augment his inflation beaten salary.
Before the economic downfall that has haunted Zimbabwe for the last decade, teachers used to be among the highly paid professionals and they could afford to buy cars and houses, things that have since become out-of- reach luxuries.
According to one former teacher the profession was 'enviable' because teachers were 'untouchable' in the society.
But today teachers have been turned to virtual beggar, as their salaries are almost always way below the Poverty Datum Line (PDL).
This month government increased the war veterans’ monthly allowance to $8.7 billion against teachers’ salaries averaging $3 billion, below the PDL of over $5 billion.

Last week the state run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) ran a story in which teachers had been “urged to take on projects to supplement their salaries”

An educationist who declined to be named said such utterances are an unwarranted insult from a government that has failed to cater for the needs of the civil servants.
“The dignity of civil servants, especially teachers has been reduced and this affects them in every way as they cannot operate effectively. Tell me, how can a teacher do his job well when the students he is teaching know that he cannot afford to buy a decent pair of trousers with his salary, psychologically it affects them,” said the educationist.

Gertrude Hambira, a veteran trade unionist said the education has been “forgotten” and it will take a lot of effort to revive the system.
“We will need a government dedicated to the future of their young generation to revive this sector,” she said.
For most of last term the teachers were a on strike with the government promising them huge salaries that were never to come.

Morale is low in schools, as many teachers have lost all the enthusiasm in their work preferring to do extra work like selling freezits, sweets, operating small phone shops or dealing in foreign currency.
Some teachers are taking regular vacations from schools to do cross border trading and when they leave there are usually no replacements for them and pupils are left with no teachers.
At Rutope Secondary School near Harare there has been no Mathematics teacher since last year.
Vacancies left by the qualified teachers who have taken flight have been filled by untrained school leavers who are struggling .
It is estimated that over 50 000 teachers have left Zimbabwe for greener pastures since the economic downfall began.
Some have gone to the United Kingdom where they are reportedly doing odd jobs like caring for the old, whole some have gone to work in the farms and as housemaids or gardeners in Botswana and South Africa. The lucky ones have found teaching jobs in these countries.
In an interview Rita Kambasha, a teacher by profession who has just returned from South Africa where she is working at a citrus farm as a general hand, said that life as a farm worker down south is far better than being a teacher in Zimbabwe.
“With the money I earn as a farm worker I can buy my family and parents back here groceries and clothes and I can sustain myself pretty well,” she said.
Kambasha said she however fears for her daughter who is being educated under the volatile environment.
“Our children are victims of a regime that does not have a heart for the education system and to expect them to become fully educated like we did in the past is a miracle,” she said.
A snap survey in several schools revealed that schools are grappling against a critical shortage of learning material like chalks, textbooks and ballpoint pens.
The situation has been made worse by the obsolete infrastructure that has gone without repair and maintenance due to the high cost of building and furnishing material.
At Highfield High School, just like many other schools, they have coined the term ‘furniture war’ as pupils have to fight for desks that are in shortage.
“What happens is when pupils go for their practical lessons at the laboratories or workshops, they find their classrooms empty because another class would have taken their desks and chairs and they have to find their own from another empty classroom,” explained one teacher from the school that was once revered for its standards that surpassed all high density schools.
In many Harare schools visited, the buildings have gone for ages without maintenance.
Paint is peeling off, light bulbs are broken, ceilings have large holes, gutters are falling down, windows are broken, floors are potholed and roofs are falling in.
The low fees stipulated by the government have compounded the situation, as school development committees can no longer afford to provide adequately to the institution.
Jonah Kaswamuzira, a retired teacher said the fees are not adequate to maintain the infrastructure.
He however, said the whole problem lies with the whole economic set up that has seen many utilities beyond the reach of many.
“How can a school afford to replace broken windows when there is not enough chalk for the teachers,” said Kaswamunzira.
Parents on the other hand, have to brace for the high school fees. For the boarding students, it is worse as thy have to struggle to source scarce groceries for their pupils.
They also have to be prepared for a top up fees somewhere in the middle of the term.
Currently many boarding schools are charging fees of $6 billion up to $30 billion for the term but with the hyper- inflation, parents will need to top up the fees
Zimbabwean education sector used to be the pride of Africa and the world.

N.B * Not his real name, the teacher requested that we do not reveal his identity due to the Ministry regulations barring teachers from speaking to the press.