The above probably illustrates how social exclusion or at-riskiness in Zimbabwean secondary schools results from the government’s various deprivations relating to the disadvantaged, who have been left with limited access or just minimally decent educational access (Sen, 2005). In one sense, the decentralization policy may be viewed as a transfer package of risk on to families through their likely incapacity to maintain and extend existing schools and the inability to raise the finance for the construction of new schools, which are roles that were handed over to the SDCs and SDAs (World Bank, 2011). The resultant scenario is that the capacity of each school to raise and manage finances under decentralization generally reflects the absence of wealth within the community which supports each school (Chisaka, 2003), and this is where it seems unfair to lose the previous state-provided educational access equity cover.
Besides the localized community financial limitations, further barriers to quality education are the shortage of teaching and learning materials, in addition to the fact that inflation continues to severely affect teachers’ salaries, which have dropped significantly, leading to a norm of high teacher absenteeism. World Bank (2011) adds that infrastructure has been deteriorating and user fees have been increasing in order to compensate for budget cuts, but this is increasing at-riskiness for students from poorer households, whose dropout rates have been rising significantly. There is evidence of exorbitant levies such as desk fee deposits of as much as ZWD1,000, in addition to ZWD950 for school fees, according to Chinowaita (2014b). These prohibitive levies appear to be discriminatory and are in conflict with the equalization of educational access, and decentralization has exacerbated inequalities where they already existed (Chisaka, 2003). Government retained the wedge bill, a per student school grant and tuition grants to non-governmental schools for the purchase of books and learning materials. The idea of an equalizing grant needs to be appraised as a great initiative towards minimizing at-riskiness.
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According to World Bank (2011), the grants are allocated based on the available government revenues rather than the actual cost and the market value of the pedagogic materials, and, therefore, this gesture may be criticized for its inadequacy or ineffectiveness in the educational financing of at-risk students in urban Group B schools. Worse still is the observation that only a small amount is disbursed, and usually with substantial delays. Furthermore, World Bank (2011) notes that rural schools, mainly under the jurisdiction of district councils, do not receive such equalizing grant assistance, which is a form of discrimination. This has since disadvantaged some groups to become educationally excluded in what Wang (2011) describes as either constitutive or instrumental acts by government. Making the gesture of the equalizing grant worse is the fact that even that grant has been gradually dwindling, giving rise to concerns about its potential effect in increasing at-riskiness and resulting in poor teacher salaries and low operational and teaching materials (World Bank, 2011). This has left those students from such schools exposed to increase at-riskiness, and the shrinking high school enrolment record shown in Table 3.6 is evidence of the impact of that, with approximately 50,000 students having dropped out of high school between Form I and Form IV.
Table 3.6: Secondary Enrolment by Form and Year 2006–2009
(Adapted from World Bank, 2011: 36)
The figures Table 3.6 indicate that, although nearly 200,000 students enrolled at Form 1 level, World Bank (2011) observes that, between 2001 and 2006, at-riskiness in secondary education saw enrolment decline to 46 per cent from 51 per cent from 888,000 students, whose total dropped further in 2009 to 783,000 (34 per cent). This decline is also confirmed to be worse among female students, among whom only 49 per cent attended secondary education. This drops further to only 35 per cent for upper secondary education, as confirmed by World Bank
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(2011), which observed that 208,200 students enrolled in Form I in 2006 but only 160,400 stayed on to Form IV in 2009. This may be attributed to the interplay of both macro-micro economic factors. Students may have also failed to attend school, possibly due to the loss of family income through company closures, which can expose families to financial pressures, making them face difficult sacrifices by parents asking children to supplement family income by working instead of attending school (World Bank, 2011).
Further reasons for at-riskiness have been revealed in a Zimbabwean study by Mawere (2012), as shown in Table 3.7.
Table 3.7: Details of the Records for Dropouts at Chadzamira Secondary School
171 155 336 14 6 5 10 5 (Adapted from Mawere 2012: 8)
Mawere (2011) confirms a number of at-riskiness criteria consistent with the observation made by World Bank (2011). By gender analysis of Table 3.7, more girls than boys are at risk of dropping out of Zimbabwean secondary schools, and even more among the lower classes. The lower classes are also at a higher risk of dropping out due to pregnancy, tradition and poverty/economic hardship. Furthermore, pregnancy and marriage are a persistent risk for girls throughout their secondary education. From a socio-economic analysis then, there are more girls at risk due to poverty, preventing them from starting secondary education.
Mawere (2011) argues that the risk of dropout among girls has further implications deserving redress. He notes that dropouts are a waste of already underutilized invested money and an abandonment of the use of school resources, such as materials and resources in the form of
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classrooms, which end up being not only underutilized but also having been installed at a cost. He also notes that this riskiness fails the victims, who will abandon their educational capacity or potential, which further denies their participation to fully contribute to the country’s economy. Victims of at-riskiness then survive as liabilities to the country instead of being assets benefiting the country as useful resources (Mawere 2012). Mawere (2012) is also of the opinion that at-riskiness needs be challenged in all its forms, particularly traditions that put girls at risk of dropping out of secondary school.
While those at risk of dropout into marriage may be traced, World Bank (2011) states that the reasons for all the dropouts are not known and then postulates that some students may be joining informal educational institutions which seem to be offering better value for money. They note that the decline in education through reduced funding and financially demoralized teachers is causing some teachers to join forces with entrepreneurs and offer classes in learning outlets housed in converted churches, halls and private residences (World Bank, 2011). However, the greatest challenge to at-riskiness is the unethical practice, as confirmed in Zambia and possibly true in Zimbabwe, whereby teachers teach less in school and sometimes in makeshift schools in an unethical way, which Bennell and Akyeampong (2007) call ‘work as you earn’, whereby teachers invest very little professional energy in public schools. Teachers either come to work late, are absent (possibly due to searching for additional sources of income) or disrupt lessons through industrial action, which has been common in Zimbabwe since 1990, which also confirms dissatisfaction with pay and other conditions of service.
All of the above disadvantage students through low teacher time-on-task, according to (Ibid.). This has become so rampant in Zambia that it has been modified into an education model, whereby students have become an important source of income, raising concerns that teachers are engaging in income maximizing opportunistic behaviour through private tuition (Ibid). There is anecdotal evidence of similar fears of student exploitation in Zimbabwe by teachers who prefer to ‘offer their best service under these informal circumstances’. Because of the informal system, participating teachers enjoy enhanced market power to negotiate for a better deal than what the government pays as a way of enticing more students into these informal private classes.
One way of dealing with the phenomenon of private classes may be by ensuring that teachers receive meaningful incentives from the government. There are policies in place that could be
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copied, for example, in Kenya, where teachers receive an extra 20 per cent rural hardship allowance, and, in Nigeria, teachers receive an extra 15 per cent for teaching in riverine areas or in difficult terrain (Ibid.).
The Zimbabwe government scrapped the SDC/SDA-administered incentives to teachers in 2014, which has had potentially negative consequences for at-risk students, who may now have very unmotivated teachers. However, World Bank (2011) is cautious regarding the lack of verifiable data relating to the extent of this informal, private, alternative form of education but does propose that it is considered when explaining the net effect of decreasing enrolment in public schools, because the alternative form of education does appear to be a real attraction for both teachers and students. This form of educational access only adds to the potential for at- riskiness since the conditions under which students access education are not fully known. As a result, one is left worrying about the health and safety of those children learning in unregulated, backstreet makeshift classrooms.