Education Law

Zimbabwe's education system, once the best in Africa, is being demolished teacher by teacher.

Some of the teachers at Mufakose 3, outside the capital, Harare, called in sick and were never seen at the school again. Others didn't bother to call and just disappeared.

"You'd come to school and someone's not there and next thing you hear, he's gone," said Knox Sonopai, 43, a history teacher at Mufakose 3.

In 2007, 25,000 teachers fled the country, according to the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe. In the first two months of this year, 8,000 more disappeared. A staggering 150,000 teaching vacancies can't be filled. The Education Ministry sends out high school graduates with no degree or experience to do the job.

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At Mufakose 3, schoolboy Bernard Tinashe stared straight ahead with dreamy eyes as he painted a 10-year-old's vision of someone in a white coat curing the dying and the sick. He recited his hopes and dreams in a singsong classroom voice, as if learned by rote.

"I-want-to-be-a-doctor-because-I-want-to-give-people-medicine-when-they're-sick. Sometimes-they-don't-get-medicine-because-in-this-country-there's-no-medicine. To-learn-is-the-best-thing-in-Zimbabwe-so-that-you-can-be-educated-so-that-you-can-
learn-something-that-you-can-do."

When there aren't enough teachers or there's a strike (a frequent occurrence these days), children are sent home or spend the day outside playing.

"School's boring," Bernard said, "because there are no teachers and we don't learn anything. You just sit and read books but the teachers are not there. Sometimes we are just sitting on the ground or sitting waiting for our parents to come and get us and then we'll go home."

He said some of the children were mischievously delighted when classes were canceled, but not him: "It makes me feel unhappy. I'll never get to be educated. I'll never get to be a doctor. I'm not learning."

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