By Alois Vinga

The government has rescinded its decision to hike this year’s Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council (Zimsec) exam fees following an outcry by parents and teacher organisations.

Education minister Cain Mathema, in a statement said there was need to carry out further consultations before effecting any increases.

“While the examination fees that were published are based on the actual cost of each examination, the ministry would like to inform parents and guardians that following further representations, the recently released circular on the 2020 examination fees has been cancelled with immediate effect,” he said in a statement.

“New fees will be announced after further consultations have been made with all the relevant stakeholders. Parents and guardians are, therefore, advised to continue paying the old fees approved in 2015.” The revers al followed the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) has launch of the #EXAMFEESMUSTFALL campaign to pressure government to reign in the Zimbabwe Examinations Council's (ZIMSEC) move to index examinations fees against the US$ parallel market exchange rates despite the fact that salaries have remained static.

In a statement, the rural teachers union said relevant authorities must be sensitive to the plight of Zimbabweans who have become poorer under President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration. “It is against this background that ARTUZ has launched the #EXAMFEESMUSTFALL campaign. The campaign is informed by both our ideological standpoint and our love for Zimbabwe. We pledge to do anything and everything within our means to force government to subsidise examination fees,” ARTUZ said.

The teachers group however said lowering the fees will compromise the quality of our examinations hence government should assume its constitutional mandate of funding education. The examinations organ was criticised for its inhumane approach synonymous to the world of business despite being a public entity partly surviving on taxpayers' revenue.

“The ZIMSEC has joined the band wagon of service providers who are indexing prices of their services to the interbank rates. This is coming at a time when salaries have remained stagnant and unemployment is at an all-time high. According to the United Nations over 7 million people are facing extreme hunger,” the statement said.

The backlash comes against a background where the examinations council has pegged fees for 2020 at $190-00 per Ordinary Level subject and Advanced Level at $351-00 per subject. ARTUZ said the gains earned by BY OWN CORRESPONDENT Zimbabwe exchange sex for jobs: Study services to this exchange rate. The General Council noted with concern the high levels of corruptions in the country, the illicit financial outflows, and state capture by cartels and resolved to join other progressive organisations in fighting these scourges bleeding the country,” read a statement released after following a general council meeting on 12 February.

ZCTU President Peter Mutasa called for unity of purpose among workers in fighting for the minimum wage and restoration of wage value.

“It is either we get our living wage so that we restore our dignity, or we fight so that the oppressive class does not back their business through our toiling and that those who are ruling, do not enjoy ruling us. We will defy every anti-people and anti-workers policies and practices if the government does not consider the suffering of workers and review or reverse policies and laws such as SI [statutory instrument] 142 of 2019. If employers continue to pay slave wages and commit all workers into abject poverty, then workers only have one option. Workers will have to embark on sustained non-violent resistance and fight back against these bad policies and practices,” said Mutasa.

The ZCTU said the industrial action was an avenue to boldly show the seriousness of workers but did not mean that they were abandoning the negotiating table. Calls by the ZCTU for an industrial action are resonating with those of other civic society organisations calling on the government to arrest the economic meltdown. In January last year, the ZCTU mobilised for a crippling protest over a 150 percent fuel price hike by Mnangagwa, but government moved in and ruthlessly crushed arresting ZCTU leaders and killing 17 people in the clampdown.

Zimbabwe through significant investments in education post 1980 which statistics on the current rates of literacy has pointed as good indicators of our progress on inclusive access to education risk being lost under the new dispensation. The union said in the long term, services like education and healthcare do not benefit the individual citizens who access them but the nation which boasts of educated and healthy citizens and any disturbance will have a direct impact on economic development. “We are reaching out to a lot of progressive organisations and citizens, Zimbabweans are ready to defend the right to education. Action will be consistently communicating from now going forward and government has been advised of the urgency of this case, we pray they will play ball before this nation is engulfed in protests,” added ARTUZ.