Withdrawal of funding threat to education
By Desmond Kumbuka
Zimbabwe’s disintegrating economy is claiming, arguably, its largest scalp to date – the country’s beleaguered education system, once touted as the show piece of the African continent.
Indications on the ground show that the Zanu PF government of President Robert Mugabe is increasingly finding the task of educating the country’s youth too onerous and burdensome for its dwindling coffers.
As in many other documented cases when the government has faced a financial predicament, it has, predictably, always turned to its cash-strapped citizens for salvation. Parents and guardians are now increasingly being asked to pay more for their children’s education, a development many fear will knock the bottom off one of independent Zimbabwe’s key achievements.
During a recent launch of the first University of Zimbabwe Horse Race Day, a fund-raising initiative mooted to provide financial support to needy students at the institution, Vice Chancellor, Professor Levi Nyagura amply illustrated the dire situation facing the education system in the country.
Nyagura told prospective sponsors and guests at a brief ceremony at the main Harare campus recently that at least 2000 students needed external financial assistance to pay tuition and boarding fees to enable them to pursue their studies.
But other sources within the university dismiss Nyagura’s figure as an unrealistically conservative estimate. They insist that of the current enrolment of about 12 500 students, more than a third are in financial dire straits and are struggling to remain at the institution. Nyagura himself appeared to support this view when he said at least 90 percent of students at the university were from low-income or indigent families, many of whom were in no position to pay fees for their children.
The situation is worsened by the fact that thousands of Zimbabwean parents are losing their jobs every month as more and more companies collapse due to the unrelenting economic crisis. This in an environment of political instability that has effectively put paid to any meaningful inflows of Financial Direct Investment (FDI) necessary to revive the economy.
“We realize that the government alone cannot be expected to bear the burden of educating our youth given its many competing demands, so we must all play our part to support our children,” said Nyagura in justifying the fund-raising efforts by the university. The horse-race day initiative is one of several activities lined up as part of a year-long programme to commemorate the institution’s 60th year anniversary this year.
However, the harbinger of a more devastating crisis is looming on the horizon for tertiary and higher education in Zimbabwe. The red flag was the recent announcement by Higher and Tertiary, Science and Technology deputy minister, Dr Godfrey Gandawa confirming that government was considering weaning off state universities to make them meet a percentage of their staff salaries.
Sources quoted by the Herald newspaper, normally trusted on government policy pronouncements, said although the issue was still to be debated by Cabinet, the government intended to implement the proposal as early as July 2015. Giving a specific timeline for the move was an indication most Zimbabweans understood to mean there was already consensus within the ruling Zanu PF party, whose decisions the government seldom questions.
If this happens, it means from July universities will no longer be receiving any funding from government – they will be expected to stand on their own – a recipe for disaster, if the sentiments of academics and independent analysts are to be taken seriously. Government support to state universities includes sponsoring key projects and expansion, salaries, equipment, acquisition of properties and providing student grants and loans.
The inevitable consequence of this “ill-conceived” proposal, economic analysts warned, will be the likely increase in fees with the institutions concerned invariably passing on the burden to the students. So, while the move might achieve the desired objective of saving the struggling government some cash, it will push some of the universities into a corner where, besides trying to squeeze more money from their already hard-pressed students, they will be forced to resort of unorthodox means to stay afloat.
Currently, students pay nominal fees of between US$400 to us$600 per semester depending on the faculty and specific subjects of study. This is far below fees charged by other universities in the region, for instance South Africa, which run into thousands of dollars per semester. This means although many of the students are not directly under state scholarships, they still enjoy a substantial government subsidy which, if removed, will leave most of them exposed to potentially unmanageable costs. Many of Zimbabwe’s dozen or so state universities are ill-prepared to be financially independent.
What is ironic though, but not surprising, is that government should be considering withdrawing funding to universities so soon after widely reported disturbances at state universities. Lecturers at several of these institutions recently went on strike over unpaid salaries. The main University of Zimbabwe (UZ) campus in Harare was briefly shut down barely three months ago following a massive demonstration by students, lecturers and kitchen staff over unpaid salaries among other grievances. The university’s lecturers complained that their salaries were being paid well after due date on the 25th- of the month.
Riot police had to be called to restore order after the students stormed university buildings protesting the lack of food after kitchen staff abandoned their pots and pans in sympathy with the lecturers because they too had not been paid. Reports then suggested the university had run out of cash at the end of January 2015, but had only managed to scrape together enough money to pay February salaries with the March salaries still in doubt.
In what was obviously a knee-jerk reaction to the crisis, the university authorities immediately announced they were shutting down the institution. A circular signed by the university registrar, Sergeant Chevo, tersely informed the students of the impromptu closure: “The University of Zimbabwe is on recess from 17 March, 2015 to Tuesday 24 March in order to address issues that require immediate attention. All students are expected to vacate the halls of residence and the University campus with immediate effect and by not later than 3.00pm today, 17 March, 2015. Lectures will resume on Wednesday 25 March, 2015.”
But barely 24 hours later, after a threat of a court action by lawyers representing the students and the intervention of the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Oppah Muchinguri, UZ authorities abruptly rescinded their decision and reopened the institution.
Nyagura issued statement, I quote:: “Following an earlier statement issued yesterday advising students, the general public and indeed the University of Zimbabwe community that the institution was going on recess until 24 March 2015, I am happy to advise that urgent issues that needed immediate attention have now been resolved. Consequently, lectures resumed today 18 March, 2015 at 0800 hours.
“Resident students should return to their hostels immediately and attend lectures as usual. The University of Zimbabwe wishes to thank the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development for her timely intervention to address the urgent issues.”
These developments underscore the already precarious financial situation threatening higher and tertiary learning in the country. Many people agree that any decision that seeks to shift the responsibility of funding education from government to parents and guardians, many of them victims of the current economic malaise, will inevitably sound the death knell for a sector already reeling from the effects of under-funding.
“The obvious consequence of this will be to make university education a privilege and exclusive preserve of a few elite at a time when most households are facing daunting challenges due to the prevailing high unemployment rate,” commented independent economist Brains Muchemwa quoted in the Herald report.
