Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0422/04228.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 26KB | 410 lines

$Unique_ID{COW04228}
$Pretitle{371}
$Title{Zimbabwe
Chapter 2E.   Education}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Irving Kaplan}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{schools
african
health
rural
primary
africans
education
secondary
government
facilities}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Country:     Zimbabwe
Book:        Zimbabwe, A Country Study
Author:      Irving Kaplan
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 2E.   Education

     The postindependence government inherited what had long been (except for
the University of Zimbabwe, formerly the University of Rhodesia) two sharply
segregated systems of education. In the Zimbabwe Rhodesia era the legislative
basis of segregation was abrogated, but the Education Act of 1979 that
replaced it did little to change de facto segregation and the dual
characteristics of the old system (see fig. 14). The new government had the
task of desegregating and expanding the system and of changing the character
of education to suit an African-dominated society.

     Before independence some free primary education for Africans was
available but fees were required in many schools, and primary schooling was
far from universal. Government financial support was far less than that given
education for Europeans. In 1976-77, for example, per capita support for white
pupils was ten times that for blacks. Much of the responsibility for building
and staffing devolved on missions and other organizations (local councils in
the TTL). The schools run by these grous-83 percent of all African
schools-were deemed private but were required to meet standards established by
the central government. Most teachers were Africans, some well trained but
many more, less so. Here again government offered comparatively little support
and few facilities. In the 1970s roughly half the children in the
six-to-twelve-or thirteen-year cohort were enrolled as students. The numbers
grew slowly until 1978 when the war led to a decline.

     Schooling for European children was free and compulsory to the age of
fifteen, i.e., through the ninth grade or junior-secondary school. Fees for
most secondary schools were low enough to be affordable by all but a few
European families but not by most African ones. The teachers in European
primary schools (all Europeans) were better trained than the typical teacher
in African schools.

     A very small proportion of Africans completing primary school entered
secondary school, and most were assigned to a course of study that terminated
at the junior-secondary level. An even smaller proportion therefore went
beyond that level, and a still smaller group completed the upper year of Form
VI and were able to take the examination for the Cambridge Higher School
Certificate, the passing of which made them eligible for the university.
Talent and application were not enough to complete the full course. Fees were
required, and most secondary schools were boarding schools. Only students
whose parents were well off and willing to support them or who could obtain
other aid were able to undertake six years of schooling when others of their
age-group were working. Typically, students and their families saw secondary
and higher education as paths to a good job, but even that reward was limited
given the de facto reservation of many such jobs for whites.

     Most white children attended secondary schools through the age of sixteen
or so, i.e., through Form III or IV. Passing the examination after Form IV
made them eligible for a range of technical training, apprenticeships, and
other jobs not open to those with a lesser education. After 1975, however, the
European population began to diminish and with it white enrollment in the
primary and secondary schools.

     In 1979 the two school systems were technically unified, but the schools
were not integrated. Three kinds of schools-government, community, and
private-were established. Government schools were differentiated with respect
to the fees required. Those assessing high fees were also residentially zoned,
thus excluding virtually all Africans. Low-fee schools were to serve
substantial numbers of Africans, particularly in the urban areas. Free schools
catered to the poorest Africans. Community schools were organized in terms of
linguistic, cultural, and religious criteria and were to be administered by
boards of governors that set admissions and other policies. Communities could
buy existing state schools or establish new ones. Even if an African community
could afford the capital and operating costs of such a school, which it rarely
could, the school was likely to be exclusively African. Finally, there were
mission and other (locally administered) schools that were granted some aid by
the government. In effect these were the private schools previously attended
by most rural African children.

     The exception to the generally segregated character of the
preindependence school system was the University of Rhodesia. Established as
the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1955, it became the
University College of Rhodesia after the termination of the Federation of
Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and a full university in 1970. Admission to the
university was based on the successful completion of examinations in approved
subjects, the precise requirements varying according to the faculty or
institute to which the student applied. Despite the limited number of places
for them in secondary schools preparing students for university matriculation,
Africans constituted 40 percent or more of the student body in the 1970s, in
part because those who did complete their secondary education in the face of
obstacles were clearly eligible. Moreover financial aid was available to them
at that level.

     Despite the nonsegregated character of the university, whites seeking
higher education were favored in other ways: they received government support
to attend South African universities and were prepared for matriculation in a
special section of Form VI. The polytechnics were open largely to whites, in
part because a technical education was linked to the possibility of
apprenticeship for which Africans were not eligible until the late 1970s and
then only in very small numbers.

     Initially the new government did little to change the system established
by the Education Act of 1979, although its leaders considered much of it
unsatisfactory. They wanted first to evaluate Zimbabwe's needs and to assess
the costs of change. Some changes in the examination system were made to
permit larger numbers of Africans to move into the higher grades. Age limits
for entering either primary or secondary school were lifted, and the practice
of assigning most African students to a secondary-school course ending at
grade nine was terminated. Above all, fees for primary education were
eliminated in most schools (all truly private-including religious-schools that
changed high fees could continue to do so in conformity with Zimbabwe's)
Constitution). The community school system, which catered to most whites at
primary and secondary levels, remained in place until 1982.

     The end of the civil war, the coming to power of the new government, the
elimination of fees in primary schools, and the lifting of certain
restrictions pertaining to secondary schools led to substantial increases in
the numbers of African children in these institutions beginning in the second
term of 1980. By the 1982 school year, enrollment in the primary schools was
more than double that for 1979. Secondary schools, although still requiring
fees, nevertheless drew more than three times the number of students enrolled
in 1979 (see table 4; table 5, Appendix). Most secondary-school students who
have enrolled since independence were in Forms I and II. After the increase in
primary-school enrollments in the second semester of 1980, roughly 78 percent
of the six-to-twelve-year cohort was in primary school. It was likely that by
1982 the proportion was more than 90 percent. The proport