Failure to grant scholarships points to education crisis

Recent clashes between Swazi university students and riot police have brought a burgeoning education crisis into sharp relief, but went unreported by the state radio and television networks.

Street battles erupted after students marched on Prime Minister Themba Dlamini's offices demanding that the government honour its university scholarship commitments. Musa Hlope, a member of government's semi-autonomous National Curriculum Centre, said "reasonable people should have seen this crisis in education coming."

In a report released last week, the centre said a lack of government policy on school fees, curriculum development, assessment and evaluation, and availability of schoolbooks was responsible. "An analysis of various policy documents shows fragmentation and inconsistency within the Ministry of Education," the study commented.

One such failure has been the government's stated commitment to educate orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). In a total population of about one million people, two-thirds of whom live on US$2 or less a day, Swaziland has more than 50,000 orphans as a result of AIDS. According to UNAIDS, 33 percent of sexually active adults are infected by HIV.

"Incongruent policies means secondary education will remain a dream for most OVC and other Swazi children," the report said. The government provided free school textbooks for the first time this year in an attempt to lower school costs to caregivers and parents, but a lack of policy on school fees made the gesture meaningless.

Of immediate concern to the university students was the imminent expulsion of students who had expected government scholarships. The education ministry at first said 182 students had been affected by scholarship reduction, but the announcement that 521 students were to be deprived of scholarships provoked the protests and subsequent student unrest.

Since Swaziland gained independence in 1968, government scholarships have been automatically awarded to any Swazi student admitted to the University of Swaziland, whose chancellor is King Mswati III, the continent's last remaining executive monarch.

Hlope called for a rethinking of government's spending priorities, such as dispensing with the multimillion dollar new national airport project and reduced military spending, because neighbouring Mozambique and South Africa did not pose any threat to the landlocked country.

According to the Central Bank of Swaziland, over the past five years education has received on average 2.8 percent of capital expenditure, compared to 6.2 percent for public order and safety. Parliament is not permitted to debate the security budget.

In a press statement, the Coordinating Assembly of Non-Government Organisations (CANGO), an umbrella body of NGOs, called for increased capital and recurrent expenditure on education, and a tertiary education policy.

"In the absence of this policy, what is the rationale for the distribution of scarce scholarship resources? We appreciate government's efforts to provide tertiary loans over the years, despite the dwindling economy and the fact that some students are unable to repay these loans, but this was done in the absence of a comprehensive tertiary education policy," CANGO said.

Citing a review of public expenditure by the International Monetary Fund, CANGO pointed out that spending on tertiary education benefited society's wealthiest segment. University scholarships are awarded on the basis of test scores, which are often achieved by students attending the better-endowed and more expensive urban high schools.

The NGO group called the policy "regressive", and echoed earlier concerns by the United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef, that available resources should benefit those in primary and secondary school education.

"The challenges faced by the rural poor in their quest for education are insurmountable," said CANGO. About 80 percent of Swazis live in rural areas, where schools lack desks, chairs, science laboratories, equipment, libraries, stationery, computers and internet facilities.

Children often carry the burdens of poverty. "Rural pupils are still expected to perform household chores after school, like fetching water, collecting firewood from far-flung places, herding cattle and also manning the fields," said CANGO.
"This, therefore, renders the selection criteria used by the Ministry of Education discriminatory and unjust."

Unless rural students are given better access to tertiary education, they will be unable to break the cycle of poverty in which their families have been caught.

"Our main concern is that this will further compound the poverty situation we are currently facing. We cannot deny that those who do not succeed beyond high school today will be significantly more likely to experience poverty during their lifetime," CANGO pointed out.

In adverts in the local press, educationalists have implored parliament to convene an emergency sitting to pass a supplementary budget for scholarships.

They note that members of parliament (MPs) had no trouble doing this a year ago to finance a government "capacity building" exercise for small business development, on which R50 million (US$) was squandered, and which is now the subject of a commission of inquiry.

CANGO blamed MPs for being bamboozled by cabinet into thinking all was well in the education ministry's budget.

jh/go/he