“Foreign currency from the inter-bank market shall be utilised for
current bonafide foreign payment invoices except for education fees,” said
Reserve Bank Governor, Dr John Mangudya.
There are hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean students outside the
country partly or partly dependent of cash payments from Zimbabwe. How are they
going to manage now?
This is an outrage! It must be said here and loud as church bells that
these students were forced to student outside Zimbabwe because decades of poor
funding has left most education institutions in Zimbabwe without lecturers, no
books, poor facilities, etc. etc. The quality of education they are providing
is so poor most people had no choice but to send their child or relative
outside Zimbabwe.
Whilst one accepts the economic reality of a crippling shortage of
foreign currency but even this is a Zanu PF man-made problem too. It is the 38
years of rampant corruption and gross mismanagement that have destroyed the
country’s once booming economy.
Zanu PF seized most of the former white-owned farms to give them to
party chefs and their cronies. Zimbabwe used to grow enough food to feed its
own people with plenty leftover for export. We used to be the breadbasket of
the region. Since the farm seizures, the country has struggled to produce
enough to feed its own people. We now have rely on import food and good to be
paid for in foreign currency which we do not have since we now produce very
little.
Government should never have to tell the citizen how they should spend
their money. If someone decides to spend their hard earned money in providing
as good an education as they possibly can; it is their choice and it is none of
government’s business to interfere, especially when it is the same government’s
corrupt and incompetence that has forced the parent to make very expensive
choices.
Governor Mangudya’s policy announcement was reckless and foolish. There
are a number of common sense options he should have explored:
1) Government should have started by announcing that
no foreign currency will be available for new students.
2) Forcing anyone to abandon his/her studies is a
waste of all the resources to get the student this far and should never ever be
taken lightly. Government should have explored other ways to save the foreign
currency. A recent report showed government was failing to pay $600 000 for
student living allowance in Russia and yet Mnangagwa was paying US$ 25 million
for a hired Jet for a 10 day jaunt.
3) If the foreign currency outflows in student fees
are still unaffordable then Government should have negotiated alternative
payment arrangements the relevant institutions/nations. Most institutions would
rather take a hair-cut of the fees than lose it all, they cannot fill a second
or third year vacant position.
@ Gabriel Kapfidze
ReplyDelete“Wilbert Mukori I like your cool headedness even with the insults directed at you by Mechavio whoever. You really demonstrate maturity and that you use your brains for thinking unlike Mechavio who appears to be singing for his supper.”
Thank you for the encouragement.
I know there are millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have sacrificed a great deal to make sure their children or relatives got a good education. Sadly, Zanu PF has let them down. Whilst many people have praised Mugabe for expanding the nation’s education system, many of us have failed to acknowledge that Mugabe has failed to deliver quality education. It has been all about quantity but no quality.
Zimbabweans have often boasted of being one of the most literate nation in Africa. True many can read and write but how many even understand what they have just read? Ask someone what is a verb and they do not know and yet they have done Zimsec “O” and may even have certificate saying they passed English with flying colours!
I have met PhD University graduates, I am talking of those who got their PhD in more than three months, from the various Universities that have sprouted all over the country like mushrooms and some could not write a single paragraph without a spelling mistake or gramma mistake. As for the paragraph making sense, that is asking for too much!
I know there are Zanu PF supporters whose children and relatives who have studied outside the country and paid for by the party. There are millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who were to make do with the sub, substandard education in the country. A few Zimbabweans have paid for their own children to study outside Zimbabwe are this decision by the RBZ to deny them access to forex to pay education fees will make life very difficult if not impossible for many of them.
It is no exaggeration that the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are well and truly trapped. It is not only education that has all but collapsed but the same can be said about health, employment, everything. Zimbabweans are dying for want of clean drinking water, food, medicine, etc.
They do not dare to even protest of their suffering and deaths, they will be beaten, raped, arrested and even shoot dead!
Zimbabwe is now a big trap for human beings denied of hope and a future by the filthy rich ruling elite. Millions have long since escape the torment, hundreds of thousands are set to leave but millions other will never escape for various reasons. They will spend the rest of their miserable time this side of their early grave in hunger, poverty and anguish!