“18 Binga schools record 0% passes!” screamed the headlines in Newsday Zimbabwe and Bulawayo 24.
“At least 18 schools in Binga, Matabeleland North province, recorded a zero percent pass rate at Ordinary Level 2022 examinations, with teachers unions yesterday saying such results showed education inequality in the country and accused government of failing to provide marginalised communities with free education” said the report.
This is not happening in Binga alone, this is a nationwide problem. In 2019 the MP for Chiredzi South in Masvingo Province called a meeting with all the school heads to discuss the school results. The best performing schools at grade seven, Form two, “O” level and “A” level had a 3% pass rate!
The quality of Zimbabwe’s education started to go down soon after the country’s independence in 1980 because the incoming Zanu PF government was obsessed about quantity and completely ignored the need for quality. Schools were built up and down the country, like sprouting mushroom after the rain, but were not properly resourced in terms of materials and staff.
As Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown got worse and worse due to the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption this Mnangagwa government, like the Mugabe government before it, has cut government funding to education and health to the borne. Many qualified teachers and health care workers have left the country in droves search of better conditions of service and a living wage.
Zimbabwe’s public education and health care services have all but completely collapsed. If the best performing schools have 3% pass rate with the majority registering 0%, what more evidence do we need to finally admit our education service has collapsed.
So how is it possible that this failed Zanu PF government still continues to enjoy political support in rural areas? Indeed, the party considers rural areas its political strong hold!
The rural people are simple folk but they are not that stupid not to have noticed that the quality of basic education and health care service were going down and now have totally collapsed. Of course, they noticed that and they would not have never continued to vote for Zanu PF regardless. They have been voting for the regime all these years because they have been coerced to do so.
Zanu PF will win the majority of the votes in the 2023 elections in Binga, as with many other rural areas, regardless of 18 schools having 0% pass rate! Not because the Zanu PF government is popular but as proof of the regime’s vote rigging mastery.
In an a recent audio President Mnangagwa is heard boasting of how the rural voters will be frog matched to vote for Zanu PF. The village head will be in front, the voters will follow and the party chair man will bring up the rear. The party will know how everyone voted. “Only death has no track record, voters have!” he warned.
A 3 to 0% pass rate means a whole generation of these rural people is damned and so too is the nation because no country can survive much less thrive when so many of its people are denied a future and hope. These people will be a burden to society for no fault of their own.
The need for Zimbabwe to implement the democratic reforms and break Zanu PF’s electoral struggle hold on the nation is more urgent now than ever. Zimbabwe cannot afford another rigged election and five more years of 0% pass rates at school!
HARARE: Zimbabwe’s creditors will meet on Feb. 23 as the country takes steps towards clearing more than $6 billion of arrears on its foreign debt, finance minister Mthuli Ncube told Reuters on Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteAbout 17 countries from the Paris Club of creditor nations will attend, as well as the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB) and European Investment Bank, to discuss progress on economic and governance reforms, including compensation to white former farmers, Ncube said.
Zimbabwe, which has suffered periods of hyperinflation in the past 15 years, had over $14 billion in external debt as of September, according to finance ministry data. Due to its arrears, it has not received loans from lenders such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for more than two decades.
The meeting agenda “is part of what is needed for us to walk through the road towards arrears clearance,” Ncube said. “It has really begun in earnest, so I am pleased we are at this stage and we are making very good progress.”
“We are making very good progress!” was there ever a time when Zanu PF reported anything else. In the first decade since our independence Mugabe never tired of talking of “Gutsa ruzhinji!” (Mass prosperity!) even when it was clear the nation was heading for mass poverty!
This Zanu PF regime has all but thrown the ordinary people over board in its efforts to pay-off the nation’s outstanding debt, basic services such as public education and health care have all but collapsed. Rural schools are posting 0% past rates, for Pete’s sake. And yet the debt still remains.
Minister Ncube is admitting Zimbabwe is failing to get financial assistance because of its failure to pay its debt, no mention of sanctions.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who rig elections to stay in power. By rigging these 2023 elections Zanu PF is confirming that the country is still a pariah state. As long as we remain a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery.
IS SOUTH AFRICA'S DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENT ON IT'S FINAL LEGS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B39nDlxrqu8
ReplyDeleteThe Zanu PF regime and its propagandists and apologists love pointing to the poor service delivery, sorry state of the roads, etc. in urban centres as proof of the opposition’s failure to govern. Urban centres are the opposition’s political strongholds.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is the economic situation in the rural areas is a hell lot worse than in urban centres.
The urban voters can afford to go to private hospitals for the health care needs and send their children to private schools. The rural voters are totally dependent on the public health care and education services and these have all but collapsed. And it is Zanu PF that is responsible for central government and rural councils.
Why rural areas have remained Zanu PF stronghold has absolutely nothing to do with the party’s performance in public office but rather with the party’s “mastery” at rigging elections, as you rightly said.
Zanu PF is rigging these 2023 elections and nowhere is this more blatantly done than in the rural areas. How can the elections be declared free, fair and credible when the voters are frog matched to vote and a punished at every turn if they dare protest?
The right to vote is the guarantee of governance only when the elections are free, fair and credible. When elections are rigged, the vote has become a curse; an excuse for tyrants to harass, beat and even kill the helpless electorate to forcing them to act contrary to their free will and their own interests.
By endorsing rigged elections and granting Zanu PF legitimacy the opposition and the outside world are adding insult to injury to the victims of these flawed elections. The rural voters are simple and political powerless but they are not stupid. They know what 0% pass rate means and know Zanu PF is responsible for it. They would never vote for Zanu PF if the elections were free and fair. Never!
@ Son of Isaac
ReplyDeleteI am fed up with Zimbabwe's failure to hold free and fair elections after 43 years of independence. I know the only way to stop this madness is implementing the democratic reforms.
You do not deny that implementing reforms is the solution to ending the insanity of rigged elections. You do not offer any alternative solution. You did nothing to make sure MDC leaders implemented the reforms when they had the golden opportunity to do so.
All you are doing is trying to silence me because you don’t want it said that MDC/CCC leaders sold out. You have your head buried in Chamisa’s back side and to hear your Change Champion in Chief criticised is more than you can bear.
Well, I am not here to say what MUST be said, even if it means saying it thousand time a day. I am not here to message your misplace ego!