Jane Fields: Hard lessons of Mugabe’s clearances

Published on Monday 10 October 2011 00:15

AMNESTY International’s latest report on the lack of education in Zimbabwe’s slum areas makes depressing reading but it shouldn’t detract from the determination of many teachers and parents to give children a chance to learn in the grimmest of circumstances.

Amnesty says thousands of children are being “forced to grow up without access to education” as a result of Robert Mugabe’s shanty clearances in May 2005. Believed to be a plot by Mugabe’s cronies to rid Zimbabwe’s cities of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in the wake of humiliating gains by Morgan Tsvangirai in March elections, Operation Murambatsvina (Drive-Out-The-Filth) left 700,000 without homes or jobs. Six years on, many have simply reconstructed their shacks in new “settlements”, where they live without access to public transport, jobs or proper education.

The slum clearances had a terrible impact on Zimbabwe’s poorest children. Former teacher Trudy Stevenson, now Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Senegal, recalls that a school in Hatcliffe Extension, an impoverished area of her Harare constituency, was “not so much destroyed as vandalised and cleared out during Murambatsvina.” Some pupils transferred to a primary school in a nearby township. But their now-destitute parents “couldn’t afford even the basic requirements of that school. [There were] lots of dropouts,” she told The Scotsman.

But it wasn’t just shanty-dwelling schoolchildren who were affected by Zimbabwe’s ten years of crisis. Schooling was so disrupted during 2008 that by October some pupils had had only 23 days of lessons.

Last week, a domestic science teacher told me she’d finished school after dark two days running. School is traditionally a mornings-only affair in tropical Zimbabwe, although “hot-seating” to cater for excess pupils means lessons can drag on into the afternoons. The late finish was due to a power cut, meaning my contact’s township pupils couldn’t start their O-level practicals on time. So she, the teenagers and their invigilator sat and waited for hours until the power flicked on.

The Herald newspaper recently carried a profile of teacher Jena Mandivava, who works in the remote central Gwamasaka area. Mr Mandivava lives in poverty, with no hope of pocketing the extra “incentives” that parents pay to urban teachers. But he gives free holiday lessons to his pupils. “First and foremost, a teacher must have children at heart,” he said. No wonder education minister David Coltart last week praised rural-based teachers “for their commitment to educate pupils under deplorable conditions”.

The teachers I’ve met are almost all eloquent, dignified professionals, which may be why they get targeted by Zanu-PF. Last month, the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe complained that Mugabe supporters were interfering with history lessons, forcing teachers to parrot Zanu-PF propaganda. The union pleaded with parents to “reteach” their children. After all, parents here will scale mountains to get an education for their children – literally. A few days ago, I met Semo, four, from mountainous Nyanga. Most days, her guardian takes her six miles on foot to pre-school.

Mr Mugabe’s side of the coalition government likes to channel discontent over the education sector towards Mr Coltart, a member of the MDC. Yet in his 30 months in office, Mr Coltart has made significant improvements. He’s working hard to ban “political meetings” from schools, a reference to the anti-MDC propaganda pungwes villagers are forced to attend during election periods. Next month his ministry will distribute eight million textbooks. Writing for Newsday on Friday, social commentator Thembe Sachikonye says Mr Coltart has been described as “ridiculously optimistic” for the future of Zimbabwean education.

So he should be.