Farm kids struggle to find decent education

In a non-verbal but eloquent answer to a question posed by a visiting government and UN delegation about health conditions in her school, eight-year-old Tendayi Bwanali started coughing. When she finally settled down, she told the education department and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) officials: "We are holding lessons in tobacco barns where tobacco is prepared (cured) every year - the smell of tobacco is so strong that we have problems breathing." Bwanali is in second grade at a satellite school in the Mt Darwin district of Mashonaland Central province, in northern Zimbabwe. Lessons are held in a badly ventilated barn, which is so dark the children have to strain to see what is written on the blackboard. There are close to 70,000 children around the country enrolled in 489 satellite schools - unregistered learning centres affiliated to the nearest official school. The majority of them sprang up in the wake of the government's controversial land redistribution exercise which began in 2000. The large-scale movement of people from communal areas to formerly white-owned commercial farms resulted in children moving out of established classrooms to farms where there were either no schools, or poorly equipped learning centres which had catered mainly for the children of former farm workers. "When it emerged that the children's educational development was under threat, the Ministry of Education established satellite schools on some commercial farms to try and alleviate the challenges facing children," explained UNICEF information assistant, Tichaona Chikowore. However, with a lack of learning materials and proper facilities, education standards are far from ideal, and marked by high levels of absenteeism. UNICEF is trying to assist children in satellite schools by encouraging donors to provide financial support. "If representatives of the donor community see for themselves the plight of the children at satellite schools, they will be in a better position to appreciate what they are going through," Chikowore said. Last year, in conjunction with the New Zealand Agency for International Development, UNICEF donated education material worth US $68,000. The donation, which helped 175 schools, included pens, text books, exercise books, chalk and blackboards. Bwanali and the rest of the children in her class said they had no books, and little in the way of other learning materials. "Holding lessons in the barns is not good for the health of the children because their eyes could be damaged by the poor lighting system, while they could develop respiratory problems because of the strong tobacco smell in the barns," said headmistress Natalia Hwicho.