Here’s a report by Wilson Johwa from Bulawayo on the state of education in Zimbabwe:
It was once celebrated as a rare African success story, an example of what committed leadership can do.
Education for all was the policy Zimbabwean authorities pursued diligently for much of the first decade since independence, from Britain, in 1980. The goal was to extend education to the previously disadvantaged black majority.
As a result, scores of schools were built and the training of thousands of teachers speeded up.
The investment did not take long to bear fruit: By 2000 Zimbabwe had achieved an adult literacy rate, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), of 93 percent, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sadly, those classroom gains are currently in jeopardy, threatened by triple digit inflation and political impenitence.
One urban primary school says at least half of its more than 1,000 pupils cannot afford fees, while a government directive says learners must not be sent home.
…..
The situation is equally dire in most urban schools, and often worse in rural areas. Here, not only are parents too poor to finance non-salary recurrent costs of education, but teachers have the additional burden of being targeted by President Robert Mugabe’s marauding youth militia and war veterans.Witness Ncube, a teacher at Matshetsheni Primary School in Nkayi, Matabeleland North province, says he fled after three encounters with war veterans, who accused him of preaching opposition politics to students.
Like multitudes of other teachers, who have turned their backs on low salaries and poor conditions, he is planning to go to Britain to do whatever work he can get. Meanwhile, three months after his departure, the school still has not found a replacement.
(Hat tip: John Abeles.)