Some facts:
- The education sector has no money and no teachers anymore
- There is still an exodus of teachers to SOuth Africa
- School fees have gone up by an average of 600 %
- With one teacher for 60 students and eight pupils sharing one textbook, Zimbabwe is rapidly losing its reputation for having the best education system in Southern Africa.
- Students are fainting in class from hunger. Girls are missing school during the menstrual cycle because they cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. School dropout rates have shot up. Children are quitting school to supplement family incomes as vendors, commuter omnibus conductors, even sex workers.
- More than 31.5 percent of students were forced out of school due to the exorbitant fees being charged in higher education institutions.
Teachers have been upbraided by the ruling party for allegedly siding with the opposition during the nation’s disputed March elections, in which they served as poll monitors. More than 2,700 of them have fled or been evicted from classrooms, the teachers’ union says. Dozens of schools have closed, the union says, and 121 are being used as bases for the ruling party’s youth militias as they harass and beat opponents in the countryside.
 
 
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