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It was found that various penalties were applied to non-compliers at all three schools under study. Pupils of grades 8 and 9, the schooling of whom was still subject to fees, were openly suspended for non-payment. In the case of pupils of grades 1–7, children whose parents had not paid into the PTA fund nor had not purchased school uniforms were often excluded from school, contrary to the principles of free education. The following comment by a grandmother whose child was expelled from school is illustrative: “My granddaughter was told not to go to school until I paid the money and she put on her uniform in the presence of everybody” (Interview-C/C3).

In other cases, pupils were not allowed to sit the grade 7 examination or else the results were withheld (Interview-M/E1; M/P3; M/P4; M/P7). Yet, contrary to the findings of the present study, the World Bank reports that pupils have not been suspended from school for

non-payment in Zambia since the introduction of free education (World Bank 2006). It is plausible that the Bank failed to identify covert practices that effectively suspend children because they only interviewed their teachers.

Even if pupils were not actually suspended, persistent reminders for payment appears to have turned many pupils away from the school on account of the disgrace (see picture 6-4). One teacher in Mutande commented:

We don‟t chase them away, but they chase themselves away. The problem is that when the teacher comes into class, you just talk of the same issue [payment] then, now, that emphasis – yeah, that emphasis. The children don‟t feel OK so the result is they stop coming instead of teachers chasing (Interview-M/T2).35

Similarly, some teachers and parents in Chulu both acknowledged that the recent change in uniform meant that many poor households were unable to buy the new one for their children, often resulting in those children who felt ashamed to go to school in the old uniform dropping out (see picture 6-5).

In some cases, it was not only teachers but also PTA executive members as well who imposed the penalty on non-compliers, justifying their action by claiming that it was a „community decision‟. For example, in Mutande, twice a month, teachers and PTA executive members went from class to class to identify and order the suspension of pupils whose parents/guardians had not paid a ZMK 6,000 (USD 1.47) PTA subscription (Interview-M/H; M/E1). The PTA chairwoman claimed that this rule had been decided upon by the community itself at a PTA meeting. However, it was not clear how the decision to suspend pupils for

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In Lukasi, it was observed that each week, the head teacher and the accountant went from class to class identifying those pupils who had not paid and gave them a note of reminder, which meant that many pupils withdrew from school of their own volition on account of the disgrace they felt in front of their friends (see picture 6-4).

non-payment had been sanctioned by the community. This highlights the danger that the voices of the powerful and economically more viable have the potential to undermine the voices of the poor and marginalised through the rhetoric of „community decision.‟ It also blurs the boundary between public and private provision of education.

Picture 6-4

Regular reminders for payment of PTA subscription and school fees conducted by the head teacher and accountant in Lukasi

Picture 6-5

Pupils in new uniform (light blue) and old uniform (green) found in the same classroom in Chulu

As far as contribution in the form of labour was concerned, common measures taken by teachers and PTA executive members were to request traditional figures, such as the tribal chief, his advisors and village headmen to mobilise their „subjects‟ to report for work, and to discipline those who failed to comply with the order. It was reported that when the school involved traditional figures, nearly all the villagers would report for work, including those who did not have children in school, because “the subjects (villagers) have to obey the royalty (traditional figures)” for failure to comply with the orders often resulted in punishment (Interview-M/H).

In such cases, the voluntary nature of the community contribution expected by the policy was questionable. Rather, contribution was demanded de facto by the school leaders through the traditional authorities.

In Mutande and Lukasi, difficulty in mobilising parents and community members for school development projects in recent years had prompted school management and the PTA executive to resort to employing pupils to work on school projects, rather than asking traditional figures to mobilise their subjects, as the deputy head teacher in Lukasi explained:

The school management and PTA [executive] agreed that we should raise the 25 percent upfront for the renovation of one classroom so that some donors or the government could assist us. But nowadays, parents are not upfront in coming in numbers to work at the school; so, we decided to use our children instead (Interview-L/D).

Thus, intra-household inequity concerning mobilisation on behalf of the school was reinforced not only along the lines of gender but also those of age (see picture 6-7). Excessive manual work assigned to children, many of whom were not well fed, might well

have also been a serious obstacle to the pursuit of their academic studies.36

Thus, despite the announcement of free education for grades 1–7, great emphasis was still placed on individual responsibility for monetary or in-kind payment in practice.

Picture 6-6

Children of lower grades carrying water for brick making after their morning classes

Although some teachers reported that orphans and other vulnerable children were exempt from the payment of fees, or else they were awarded bursaries, such practices did not appear to be systemically applied with the use of objective criteria. Rather, exemption rules were often improvised on an ad hoc and arbitrary basis at the head teacher‟s discretion. In order to identify the beneficiaries of the bursary, there should have been a dedicated committee, which each school was supposed to have initiated, but either it did not exist at all (Mutande and Lukasi) or it only existed on paper (Chulu). Teachers and the community alike reported that the money available for bursaries was far too little for the scale of the problem.

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The 2006 National Assessment Survey reports that levels of learning achievement of pupils at middle basic level who did manual work at school every day was lower than that of pupils who did such work less frequently (MOE 2006b).

Furthermore, allocation criteria were reported to lack clarity, some parents complaining that the selection process was neither transparent nor objective, as one father whose child dropped out because of the lack of money to buy uniform remarked: “the bursary is too little and the selection is not transparent” (Interview-C/C2).

Thus, there was little evidence that penalties for non-compliance with contribution requirements were balanced by an effective mechanism for ensuring equity. Furthermore, the DEB and PEO rarely played the role they were mandated for – to scrutinise the level of the PTA fund in all the schools of the district (Interview-PEO; DEBS; C/H; M/H; L/H).