Education

Education:

As a nation Zimbabwe is faced with many social and economic constraints with a large number of the population living below the poverty line Zimbabwe’s human development index (HDI) rated amongst the lowest in the world. It is then no shock that the literacy rates in children are falling with an ever increasing number of children not being able to complete primary education, those that do manage to continue into high school often cannot complete their O and A levels due to the lack of money to pay exam fee’s this a problem that the government attempted to address in 2009 however many students still have not received their results from 2008 and 2007. These qualifications being their best hope of securing employment or tertiary education.

Zimbabwe’s education system has long been one of the finest in Africa if not the world it is over the last decade that lack of funding has crippled many schools. By aiming to provide necessary funding to the institutions themselves many children will benefit from this. However the lack of transparency in many schools has left much to be desired. By making teachers accountable to their students in ways such as performance reviews and other such monitoring students may be able to get a better education. I understand the complex situation that schools often find themselves in teachers trade unions are amongst the most powerful in the country and their grievances are genuine, but I do not believe that they should be holding children’s education to ransom as the main stakeholders in their future youths in Zimbabwe have very little say.