Theseus Mauruki Shambare Features Writer On Tuesday, classrooms across Zimbabwe once again filled with learners as schools opened for the third term, although the back-to-school journey had already been in…
Theseus Mauruki Shambare Features Writer
On Tuesday, classrooms across Zimbabwe once again filled with learners as schools opened for the third term, although the back-to-school journey had already been in full swing days earlier.
At Robert Gabriel Mugabe Square and the surrounding Rotten Row area in Harare, parents and guardians gathered with children, trunks and schoolbags as boarding-school learners prepared to leave for institutions across the country.
For some, it was an emotional farewell after weeks at home.
For others, it was the familiar back-to-school scramble — making sure uniforms, books, food and other essentials were packed before the long journey to school.
But for some parents, the return to school carries a burden that cannot be packed into a schoolbag. It is the burden of unpaid fees.
At Budiriro Secondary School in Muzarabani District, Mashonaland Central Province, the new term comes against the backdrop of a dispute that has exposed the difficult intersection between education, household finances, traditional authority and the desperate need for schools to raise money to operate.
For Newmous Kupfuwamhandu, the term comes at a particularly important time.
He has two children at Budiriro Secondary School, both in Form Four, meaning they are now approaching the final stretch of their secondary education. But as he prepares to send them back to school, he is also counting the cost of a school fees debt that he said spiralled beyond his ability to pay.
Kupfuwamhandu said he owed the school US$46.
According to Chief Chiweshe’s court documents in this publication’s possession, the amount later became US$156 after US$110 in warrant issuing costs was added.
What followed, he said, turned a relatively small school fees debt into a painful battle over household property.
The collectors arrived demanding payment, and according to Kupfuwamhandu, they initially wanted bags of maize.
He had none.
“The farming season had been poor, while low tobacco prices had left me struggling to settle a debt to my contracting company after the crop failed to generate enough money,” he said in a telephone interview.
The collectors then demanded his ox-drawn plough. He reluctantly surrendered it.
But, he said, they told him it did not meet the required value. Four roadrunner chickens followed. Still, he said, they demanded more.
He managed to produce US$50 and later borrowed US$20 from relatives. He eventually found another US$6.
Kupfuwamhandu said the collectors threatened to break down his door and take whatever they considered valuable if the outstanding amount was not settled.
Court records separately record the attachment of an ox-drawn plough and four chickens, followed by a partial cash payment of US$70 and a subsequent bovine pledged towards the remaining balance.
For Kupfuwamhandu, the episode is a reminder of how quickly an unpaid school bill can collide with the fragile economics of a rural household.
“I was struggling because the farming season was not good and tobacco prices were low,” he said.
His concern is not simply about losing property.
It is also about what happens when parents who depend on farming are expected to produce cash at a time when much of their wealth is tied up in crops, livestock and equipment.
Another parent, Trymore Chinyoka, said he also found himself caught in the dispute.
He has one child in Form Two at Budiriro Secondary School.
Chinyoka said he owed US$290 and, on August 5, paid US$70 after promising to return at the end of the month to clear the balance.
“I was, therefore, surprised when debt collectors arrived at my homestead. My cow was taken,” he said.
Court documents, however, record the debt in his case as US$140, together with US$110 in warrant issuing costs, bringing the documented claim to US$250.
The differences between the amounts cited by the parent and those contained in the court documents underline the importance of establishing the precise debt in each case.
But beyond the figures lies a broader question.
How should schools recover money from parents who cannot or do not pay, and where should the line be drawn when the recovery process reaches the household’s productive assets?
For Budiriro Secondary School’s Development Committee, the issue is equally difficult.
School Development Committee chairman Mr Ephraim Chikono said the school is facing challenges because some parents are failing to pay fees.
“As a school development committee, along with the headmaster, we approached the chief’s court seeking assistance, and what the chief did, we do not know,” he said.
“In that case you may ask his messenger.”
Chikono said the school is struggling to provide what learners need because of non-payment.
“We are facing challenges with these people who do not want to pay fees,” he said. “We are even failing to ensure that our children get a good learning environment because they are not willing to pay.”
Each child at Budiriro Secondary School pays US$80 per term.
For a family with two children at the school, the basic termly fees, alone therefore, amounts to US$160, before uniforms, stationery and other educational expenses are considered.
For households whose incomes depend largely on agriculture, the timing of those payments can be as important as the amount itself.
A poor harvest, depressed commodity prices or an outstanding agricultural loan can leave a family with assets but little cash.
Chief Chiweshe, born Mathew Chitemamuswe, gives a different perspective.
He said he became involved after being approached by the School Development Committee over parents who had gone for years without paying school fees.
Some, he said, had accumulated arrears for as long as five years.
“I then issued summons to the parents, giving them two weeks to pay, but many did not respond and have still not paid,” he said.
The chief said the collection of cattle or other property was intended to put pressure on parents to pay rather than permanently deprive them of their possessions.
“No cattle or property was auctioned or taken permanently,” he said.
He argued that schools cannot function without financial support from parents.
“The school is being disadvantaged by parents who do not pay their fees, and this is affecting its development because it is being left financially crippled,” he said.
The dispute, however, raises a question bigger than the competing accounts of parents, the school and the chief.
It is a question of procedure.
The Government has previously acknowledged that State schools have avenues for recovering unpaid fees, including pursuing debts through lawful processes, but has stressed that such measures should be a last resort.
In May, Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Minister Dr Angeline Gata told Parliament that State schools have legal avenues to recover outstanding fees, including attachment of property, but stressed that such measures should only be used as an “absolute last resort”.
“At law, every school in the country is run through a School Development Association,” Dr Gata said.
She explained that school development committees have the legal capacity to enter into contracts, manage school funds and enforce their rights through lawful means, including pursuing outstanding school fees and levies.
However, she stressed that debt recovery must be handled within the law and with consideration for the circumstances of parents.
“The Government strongly encourages dialogue, and debt collectors should only be a last resort after schools have exhausted internal remedies and constructive efforts to reach an agreement,” she said.
Dr Gata said schools were expected to exercise “fairness, reasonableness and sensitivity”, while engaging parents and considering their socio-economic circumstances and possible payment arrangements.
She also drew a firm line between recovering a debt from a parent and punishing the child for it.
“Engagement must occur without sending learners home,” she said, adding that the attachment of property should only happen in accordance with due process and as a final measure.
But the involvement of a traditional leader in the Budiriro dispute introduces another layer to the matter.
Who has the authority to recover a school debt?
And can that authority extend to taking a parent’s livestock, farming equipment or other property?
Director of communications and advocacy in the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, Mr Gabriel Masvora, said it cannot.
He said what the chief was doing was illegal, regardless of the circumstances that had brought the matter before him.
“Chiefs have an important role to play in their communities, including supporting development and maintaining peace, but they do not have the mandate to act as debt collectors for schools,” he said.
“Whatever the circumstances, a chief cannot take the law into his or her own hands by seizing livestock, farming equipment or other property from parents in an attempt to recover school fees.”
For Masvora, the issue is, therefore, not whether the parents should pay what they owe.
It is whether a traditional leader can be used to bypass the processes available to a school seeking to recover its money.
“Where a school has outstanding debts, there are lawful administrative and legal processes that must be followed. Traditional leaders should not be used to bypass those processes,” he said.
The Government’s position places two competing realities side by side.
Schools need parents’ contributions to maintain infrastructure, procure learning materials and provide an environment conducive to learning.
But parents do not all have the same capacity to pay, particularly in rural communities where household incomes are often tied to agriculture, livestock and seasonal earnings.
And traditional leaders, while playing an important role in resolving community disputes and maintaining peace, cannot assume powers that the law does not give them.
Police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi referred questions to the Ministry of Local Government, which oversees the operations of traditional leaders.
“What we know is that they act in accordance with the Traditional Leaders Act,” he said.
The Budiriro controversy is also not without historical echoes.
In 2016, reports emerged of Chief Sibasa being accused of assuming an unofficial role as a schools’ debt collector in Matabeleland South.
Parents from several schools were reportedly subjected to measures, including clearing roadside bushes and working on a local dam after failing to pay school fees.
The schools mentioned included Tshazi Primary School, Tshazi Secondary School, Filabusi B Primary School, Amazon School, Msithi Primary School and Singwango High School.
The circumstances are different and the cases should not be conflated.
But the historical episode illustrates that tensions can arise when traditional authority becomes entangled with the recovery of school debts.
Back at Budiriro, however, the immediate reality is the same one confronting families across the country.
The children still have to go to school. They need uniforms. They need books. They need transport. They need food. And the school still needs resources to keep classrooms functioning.
For the parents involved in the fees dispute, the challenge is finding money without dismantling the means by which their families survive.
A plough is not merely a household possession. A cow is not simply an asset that can be converted into cash.
For a farming family, such property can represent future income, food security and the ability to cultivate the next crop.
That is why the back-to-school story in Muzarabani is about more than unpaid fees.
It is about the choices families make when the school bill arrives before the harvest has paid off. It is about schools trying to provide a decent learning environment in an economy where contributions from parents remain important. It is about traditional leaders navigating expectations from communities and institutions.
And it is about a Government trying to balance the principle that children must remain in school with the reality that education systems require resources.
Most importantly, it is about where the responsibility of a parent ends and the rights of a child begin.
Masvora said traditional leaders and school authorities must operate within the powers given to them by law while ensuring that children are not caught in disputes over their parents’ debts.
Ahead of each new term, boarding-school parents gather at departure points in Harare, helping children load trunks and school bags onto buses bound for schools across the country.
A Monday before schools open, the final preparations will be under way. The following day, the bell will ring. Lessons will begin. Uniforms will fill classrooms. School Bags will be opened. And another term will start.
For children, it will simply be another school term. For their parents, however, the journey back to school carries another calculation — meeting the costs of education while keeping households running.
For families like Kupfuwamhandu’s and Chinyoka’s that calculation is even more difficult.
The question is how to keep children in the classroom without sacrificing the means by which the household survives. As every child goes back to school not everyone carries the same burden.
