GRUMBLINGS OF A DISGRUNTLED YOUTH: Revive Cadetship Scheme not Presidential Scholarships Following the heroic sacrifice made by numerous sons and daughters of the soil who fought in the trenches of guerrilla warfare, Zimbabwe was liberated from the fetters of colonialism and celebrated a long awaited independence in 1980. Its post-independence economic stability became an oasis of hope for citizens from poverty stricken African nations who made Zimbabwe their Diaspora of economic refuge. Nonetheless, Zimbabwe was soon enveloped by a heavy soot of poverty that resulted in untold economic suffocation. Zimbabwe turned from a beacon of hope into cesspool of despair; from a promised land of milk and abundant honey into a derelict land of filth and redundant money (dirty cities and Zim dollar). The tempestuous turbulence of economic destruction that swept over our nation in the last couple of years left very few people with reliable sources of income. A basic understanding of governance dictates that the more a government fails to introduce policies that ensure that citizens earn a reasonable income the more citizens become dependent on the government to subsidize social services or provide them for free. The opposite is also true. What has happened in Zimbabwe in the last couple of years is that the government has served the nation a cocktail of bad policies that have resulted in loss of foreign direct investment and closure of companies that consequently led to high levels of unemployment. Furthermore, as a result of harsh economic conditions, the few citizens that are currently employed -- especially by the government – are earning below the poverty datum line. As such, few parents and guardians can pay the full fees required for students at the tertiary level. The fees for most public tertiary institutions range from four hundred to eight hundred dollars per semester. As the economic situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated over the years, more and more students have come to require support from the government because their parents or guardians simply don’t have enough money to pay for their education. Realizing this, the government first introduced the Grants and loans Scheme. Under this scheme, the government paid full fees for tertiary students and gave them an allowance. As the economic conditions worsened, the government scrapped the Grants and Loans Scheme and replaced it with the Cadetship Scheme in 2006. Under this scheme, the government paid three quarters of school fees, leaving the student with the slight burden of paying the remaining quarter. Throughout the operation of all these schemes, another one was and is still in existence – the Presidential Scholarship. Under this scheme students are funded to go and study at South African Universities that include the University of Johannesburg, University of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN), University of Pretoria, Monash University, and Fort Hare University among others. However, in the recent past, both the Presidential Scholarship and the Cadetship Scheme became dysfunctional as a result of lack of funding. Last week, the nation woke up to the news that the Presidential Scholarship had been revived. This leads to the obvious question: which of the two government funded tertiary education schemes is more important, the Cadetship Scheme or the Presidential Scholarship. Where ever there is lack of resources, the issue of prioritization comes into play. Clearly, there are inadequate resources in Zimbabwe to fund both the Cadetship Scheme and the Presidential Scholarship as one of them has been revived whilst the other remains dysfunctional. If one was to take a look at the programs that are studied by students under the Presidential Scholarship, one will find that they include engineering, law and accounting among others. Do we not have institutions that offer these programs in Zimbabwe? The answer is yes, we do. Sending students to a foreign land to study programs that are offered locally is completely unnecessary. Where both the Presidential Scholarship and Cadetship Scheme cannot be funded concurrently it is clear that the former should be abandoned for the latter. If the Presidential Scholarship is to co-exist with the Cadetship Scheme at all then some revolutionary changes should be made in its administration. Instead of funding hordes of students to travel to South Africa to learn programs that are offered locally, the scholarship should be used to produce experts in fields not well covered by Zimbabwe’s education system. Pride Mkono Makaza Lucy Coezzett Coezett Chirinda Ruvimbo Joana Mamombe Gilbert Mutubuki Kurayi Garnett Hoyi Grant Tabvurei Tererai Obey Sithole Avoid Masiraha Kudakwashe Zihissu Munemo
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 08:01:14 +0000
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