MHONDORO, 17 April 2007 (IRIN) - MHONDORO, 17 April 2007 (IRIN) - Education delivery in Zimbabwe's rural communities has all but disintegrated and experts warn that any gains made after independence are rapidly being reversed in the continuing economic meltdown.

"Evidence on the ground shows that the standards of education among rural communities are falling sharply, and one does not rule out the possibility of a collapse if there is no active campaign to revitalise schools in these areas," Gordon Chavhunduka, former vice-chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, told IRIN.

"In line with the government's policy of bringing education to the majority after independence [in 1980], rural communities made tremendous strides, particularly before the economy started experiencing a downturn," he added.

The post-independence government, which started off on a socialist path, worked vigorously to ensure that education was available to children living in rural areas. Investment in the construction of schools and provision of teachers meant the number of learning institutions shot up, even in marginalised areas.

Now, according to Chavhunduka, the government was grappling with heavy domestic and international debts and no longer paid attention to rural areas; other social institutions such as hospitals were also crumbling.

"The main problem is the failure to provide adequate resources to sustain the existing schools, and to build more in areas that don't enjoy access to education," he commented.

No facilities, no teachers

Pass rates in remote communities are generally well below average. Donald Jonasi [not his real name], a senior teacher at Kumuka secondary school, in the Zowa area of Chegutu in Mashonaland West Province, told IRIN the school persistently produced poor results because there were no adequate facilities, it was underfunded and forced to use classrooms belonging to a primary school.

"Even though we teach science subjects, we don't have a laboratory and we resort to teaching only theory - one of the reasons why it is difficult to have good passes. Besides, how can the pupils be expected to pass when they are supposed to share classrooms with primary school pupils and sometimes learn under trees?" Jonasi asked.

It is not unusual for at least fifteen pupils to share one textbook, and most pupils can barely afford exercise books and other necessary stationery.

Trained teachers - there are only five but 30 are needed - shun the school because it is remote and does not have electricity, running water or a telephone. A single teacher is responsible for a classes of up to 45 pupils.

"Not many teachers, after spending four years at college, would want to come and teach at a school that is as poorly equipped as this. As a result, the ministry is left with no choice but to deploy untrained teachers who, obviously, cannot be expected to produce the desired results," said Jonasi.

Teacher morale was low because they were poorly paid, Jonasi said. "The government is getting monkey business because it pays nuts, and some would rather go drinking beer than teach."

The economic crunch, characterised by inflation of more than 1,700 percent, high unemployment, foreign currency shortages, shrinking industry and depleted agricultural production, has forced millions of Zimbabwean professionals to relocate to other countries. Thousands of teachers have fled to South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland in search of better paying jobs; many others had left the profession for better paying jobs.

Eat or educate

As basic commodities become more unaffordable by the day, rural parents, who mostly depend on farming, are also feeling the pinch: they can hardly afford the school fees for their children.

Takaona Chirenje, 49, of Mhondoro, a village 100km west of the capital, Harare, has five school-going children and is among the many parents struggling to balance day-to-day family needs with sending his offspring to school.

"I managed to pay fees for only two of the children last term, and I don't how I am going to clear the arrears and raise enough money for next term, starting in early May," he said.

"I have to clothe and feed all of them but the prices of commodities are well beyond my reach, since my only means of livelihood is the soil, yet we have suffered one drought after another."

Chirenje said he had no choice but to send the children to work on a nearby farm, owned by a senior government official, during the weekends. He worked part-time there himself, "but we don't get much from there since the owner of the farm pays very little".

Farm workers are among the lowest paid, with full-time labourers taking home a monthly gross of Z$10,000, [US$0.40 at parallel market rates] - not enough to buy a single exercise book - and fees are set to increase from Z$25,000 to Z$90,000 [US$1 to $2.57 at parallel market rates].

His children are bracing for a cold winter and may face the humiliation of being sent home because their father cannot afford uniforms or school fees. "I, however, consider myself lucky because - the difficulty of paying school fees and buying uniforms aside - my children are still in school. There are hundreds of other poor children I am aware of, particularly in the surrounding farms, who have dropped out of school," Chirenje said.

Secondary schools are few and far between in the Mhondoro area, leading to high dropout rates after primary education. Children often end up in illegal gold panning, fishing or working on commercial farms for low wages with their parents.

The government used to provide financial assistance to such children through the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), but the scheme is another casualty of Zimbabwe's economic nosedive.

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