Govt threatens to prosecute schools that hike fees

The Zimbabwe government has threatened to prosecute and de-register all schools that implement fee increases for 2004 without its approval. Most schools last month notified parents and guardians that they would be increasing tuition fees by between 200 percent and 2,000 percent when the new terms begins in January. Under the Education Act schools must apply for permission to adjust fees, a stipulation which the schools have defied, arguing their new fee structures were based on the need to provide quality education in an environment where the official inflation rate is over 600 percent. "The Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture understands ... the need for schools to increase fees in the light of inflation in the last 12 months. However the ministry is concerned about the rate at which the fees and levies have been hiked and the failure by schools to observe the simple procedures they should follow [in doing so]," a statement said. "Zimbabwe subscribes to the principle of education as a basic human right. To that extent it should be accessible and affordable to all ... Schools cannot raise fees and levies [without consultation], schools that continue to flout these regulations must be warned that they risk prosecution or de-registration," the statement warned. Defending the increases, schools have cited the ever-increasing costs of education material and general supplies for their pupils. "This is a simple economic issue. The government does not want the quality of education to drop but it wants it to be provided from poor facilities in a poor environment. That is shooting oneself in the foot," said the principal of a Bulawayo private school who refused to be named. "Schools buy everything from where everybody else buys, and I wonder why we are not expected to be affected by the same inflation that affects government and everybody," he added. Even middle-class parents struggle to make ends meet in Zimbabwe. The government and humanitarian agencies have warned that the fees hike will lead to a drop in school enrolment, especially of girls, damaging Zimbabwe's impressive strides towards gender parity in education. More details