Minister should stop abuse of children

Editorial Comment
SOME schools are reportedly barring disadvantaged pupils from attending classes because they have not paid their fees and the government continues to behave as if it’s business as usual.

SOME schools are reportedly barring disadvantaged pupils from attending classes because they have not paid their fees and the government continues to behave as if it’s business as usual.

Yesterday we reported that in Matabeleland South primary and secondary schools had embarked on an aggressive debt collection exercise that has seen the arrest of some parents for failing to pay fees.

This is a clear abuse of innocent children by school heads and leaders of schools’ development associations.

What makes the behaviour of the authorities at the schools criminal is that they are targeting beneficiaries of the government’s Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam) programme.

Beam helps disadvantaged children, mostly orphans, and the government is responsible for their fees. However, funds take too long to be released because of the financial problems the government is facing.

As it was revealed at a district meeting in Gwanda on Tuesday, fees for 2012 were only released last month and it is not known when this year’s fees would be paid.

The problems besetting Beam are not new and the school heads cannot behave as if they just landed from another planet.

Everyone appreciates that they need money to run their schools, but this cannot be at the expense of innocent children who are being humiliated for not paying fees.

It is not the children’s fault that the government is broke, neither is it that of their parents being hounded by debt collectors.

There are also reports that poor parents are being forced to sell their livestock to pay the fees under duress from debt collectors and this is highly unacceptable.

Education minister Lazarus Dokora’s voice must be heard clearly on the matter because this is something that happens year in year out.

The government would just warn school heads against the practice, but no one pays heed.

Pupils would still be barred from attending lessons and what makes the issue urgent is that school-leaving examinations are underway. The minister must be seen to be acting decisively on this because it is the future of a whole generation that is at stake here.