via New regulations for school fees hike – The Sunday Mail 29 June 2014 by Sunday Mail Reporter
The Government has placed a moratorium on all primary and secondary school fees hikes and enforced new stringent regulations that schools must adhere to before seeking an upward fees variation.
The new regulations announced by Primary and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora now compel school authorities to submit, along with their usual application letters, audited financial statements from the previous term and a schools development plan.
In addition, school authorities are also directed to produce minutes of the School Development Association annual general meeting approving the fees review. Most Government schools ask for between US$5 and US$30 as tuition fees while levies vary from between US$5 and US$400.
Minister Dokora said the Government had since notified schools of the new fees hike requirements.
“We have, this term, placed a stop on fees and levies increments and (we) are glad that no schools has defied the order,” said Minister Dokora, while making a contribution during the opening of the 22nd Session of the Children’s Parliament in Harare.
“Schools are now required to attach, along with their applications for levies and fees review, audited financial statements for the previous term which show evidence of how money was used. We also require a copy of the school’s development plan, which lays out what individual schools plan to use the extra money for or how the money from previous terms was used.
“Schools need to show and prove that money was used for particular and tangible projects. Furthermore, we need evidence that the school development association held an annual general meeting which gave a green light to the proposed review.”
Following Government’s moratorium on fees hike, elite schools under the Association of Trust Schools (ATS) began charging a non-refundable acceptance fee of US$2 700 for students to be enrolled for Form 1 next year as a way of skirting around the Government directive.
Government recently banned Form One entrance tests arguing that they had become a fund-raising initiative for schools. Schools are now required to enrol Form One pupils on the bas is of their Grade Seven results.
COMMENTS
Here is a minister who does not understand a fragment of how the whole system works. Comments and re-action are factually incorrect. Reveals how the rest of the country is mis-managed. Even if he was properly informed, or made the slightest effort to be, he would still not grasp what is required to make complex organisations work. Another pointless wrangle ahead, further de-moralising people who just want to get on with their lives. “Independent” means people have a choice – if they can afford private schools, let them decide!!! It has nothing to do with the Minister – he should focus on his own backyard. There is another shadowy motive at play here.
as always, a hidden agenda, control, control, control….these idiots are nothing but stumbling blocks to sustainable progress in this country..
If the Sunday Mail reporter did his or her homework, they would have discovered that the acceptance fee has been a standard charge to new parents for many many years and is not something new ‘as a way of skirting around the Government directive” This amount is a new parents contribution to the facilities the school offers.
Secondly, the entrance tests are in fact an independent assessment of the child to enable it to apply for a place in a school as the grade 7 results have not only lost the respect of all educational institutions for various valid reasons, but only come out in the new year by which time it is too late. The $50 paid by 60 – 70 children can hardly be termed fundraising when it barely covers the expenses of organizing such examinations.
Further more the SDC which is run by parents checks the schools finances and knows where all the money has been checked before approving fees. So why does the ministry need to double check especially as they do not have he capacity to know about the details and circumstances of the school as the parents on the SDC do.
The minister is better placed to spend his time accessing funding and equipment for the government schools which government has allowed to fall down to unprecedented levels of need and neglect.