Posted on 05/04/2004 6:01:11 PM PDT by blam
Zimbabwe shuts down 'racist' private schools
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 05/05/2004)
Zimbabwe's government closed the country's 46 private schools yesterday and sent children away at the start of the new term, arguing that the fees were too high.
Aeneas Chigwedere, the education minister, accused the schools of being "racist" institutions which raised their fees to keep out blacks.
School's out: pupils from St George's College await a lift home
However, the overwhelming majority of children at 45 private schools are black. All but one or two private schools are run as not-for-profit trusts.
"We are dealing with racist schools. They are all former white schools - all racist," he told state television. "They throw Africans out simply by hiking fees."
Among those stopped from attending was President Robert Mugabe's middle child, Robert Jnr, who attends the leading Catholic School, St George's College.
Inside the wooden gates at the entrance to one school were two policemen. A private security guard said: "The police are here to stop the parents from bringing their children to school."
A group of private schools lodged an urgent application with the High Court yesterday, claiming that closure of the schools was unconstitutional and at odds with provisions in the Education Act.
Mr Mugabe's government, ahead of parliamentary elections in 10 months, has launched a campaign against rampant inflation, including rising fees at both private and state schools.
Wayne Bvudzijena, a police spokesman, said police were guarding school gates because administrators defied education department regulations on increased fees.
A principal, who asked that neither he nor his school be named, said yesterday: "We have always applied to raise fees and have submitted audited accounts to the government to support our claim.
"The Department of Education ignores us, so what can we do? About 70 per cent of our costs are salaries and our main problem is keeping staff."
Most teachers at private schools earn about £250 a month, but many of the best have left the country as the economic crisis has deepened since 2000 when Mr Mugabe ruined the economy by seizing 90 per cent of productive white-owned farms.
Zimbabwe's most expensive boarding school raised its fees to nearly £1,000 a term, a 75 per cent increase, in January. One parent said yesterday: "We, the parents, agreed to the new fees through the governing body."
Zimbabwe's state education system, once the best in Africa, has deteriorated and middle-class parents struggle to send their children to private schools.
All ruling Zanu PF members of parliament send their children to private schools then overseas for tertiary education as the University of Zimbabwe is barely functioning.
David Coltart, an MP for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said yesterday that the action against private schools was unconstitutional. "About 90 per cent of parents whose children attend private schools do not support the ruling party. This is a way of punishing them."
According to the International Monetary Fund's recent annual review of Zimbabwe, school enrolment declined by about 35 per cent last year as parents could no longer afford fees at state schools.
•The South African high court is to be asked to order President Thabo Mbeki to release an independent report on Zimbabwe's disputed election two years ago.
Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, said that two South African judges were sent by President Mbeki to observe the controversial poll which gave Mr Mugabe six more years in power.
Yesterday Mr Tsvangirai's legal team said the judges' report would assist the case he has brought to the Zimbabwean courts, challenging the legality of the 2002 election.
Crawl on your belly like a snake...but GET OUT!
And the proportion of whites that are economically active has declined as the economically active ones are the first to emigrate.
It is the economically active ones that have school-age children.
Whites are rapidly losing their value as scapegoats. As I have said before, once the whites are no longer useful scapegoats, it will be the turn of Indian and Asian merchants.
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