THE CONCEPT OF FREE PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION IN ZIMBABWE: MYTH OR REALITY

The objective of this paper is to critically examine the perceptions of primary school teachers, and parents, to the concept of free primary school education in Zimbabwe and discuss to what extent this policy, adopted by the Government at independence in 1980, has been successful. While such a policy is considered quite noble as it sought to address the bottlenecks created by discriminative policies of colonial Rhodesia which marginalised the black majority, it is the researchers’ contention that it has been fraught with its own challenges which resulted in the respondents and interviewees in this study having mixed feelings on it. The case study research design was adopted and data were collected using semi-structured interview guides with twenty parents and semi-structured questionnaire for twenty teachers, purposively sampled from five Masvingo District rural schools. This study established that some positive gains have been scored such as giving the poor and the marginalised blacks, especially in rural areas, access to the much-needed education in a technologically vibrant world. However, participants bemoaned that although the free education ‘policy’ remains in place, at least on paper, the parents are being asked to pay for their children’s education in one way or the other through levies and incentives for teachers which prompted the research question on whether this policy is reality or myth. Furthermore, the policy resulted in ballooning enrolment figures at primary schools which compromised on quality. The paper recommends that developing countries such as Zimbabwe should not adopt free education policies which they will, by virtue of economic challenges, implement half-heartedly.