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Jecob Nyamadzawo Our Children, Our Future
On June 16, 2016, Zimbabwe joined the rest of Africa to commemorate the Day of the African Child (DAC).

Commemorated to remember the 1976 uprisings by schoolchildren in Soweto, South Africa, against apartheid, DAC presents an opportunity to focus on the work of all actors committed to the rights of children on the continent.

DAC also aims to consolidate their efforts in addressing the obstacles faced by the millions of children in realising their rights.

Consistent with this year’s theme on “Conflict and Crisis in Africa: Protecting all Children’s Rights”, Zimbabwe’s commemorations will be anchored on the theme “Investing in children and youth for an empowered society and growing economy to prevent conflict and protect children’s rights”.

The theme is quite befitting as it recognises that adequate and quality investments in children are a key imperator to a secure and sustainable future.

It is often argued that when public investments in children and their families are of poor quality and/or insufficient, they are, indeed a common factor that drives child poverty, inequality and may ultimately result in conflicts and crisis.

One particular area which the government needs to focus on is its investment in quality education.

Quality education offers children and youth not only a right, but opportunities to get decent jobs, to escape poverty, support their families and develop their communities.

Education improves the quantity, and quality of human capital, critical for enhancing social and economic progress of any country.

As such, it is important for any country to prioritise investment through direct budgetary allocations to the education of its children.

Whilst the Government needs to be commended for prioritising the education of its citizens, which has contributed to high literacy rates in Africa and high quality of human capital, recent trends in Government funding speaks to the need for the Government to improve the quality of its public investment to consolidate these gains.

As we celebrate this year’s theme of DAC, stakeholders should reflect on the level of public investment in education, among other sectors, and whether such investments are supportive of the objective of empowering the society and enhancing economic growth to prevent conflict and protecting children’s rights.

An analysis of trends in Primary and Secondary Education budget allocation shows that the ministry got the highest allocation of $810,43 million in 2016, which is about 20,3 percent of the $4 billion total budget and 5,7 percent of GDP. The 2016 allocation is 8,9 percent lower than the $890,14 million allocated to the sector in 2015. However, despite allocations reaching the 20 percent Dakar threshold, actual spending has remained below the allocated amounts, mainly reflecting fiscal space limitation within the Government budget.

Whilst the sector got the highest budget allocation in 2016, 98,4 percent of the Budget will be spent on employment costs. Hence, in terms of non-wage spending, the sector ranks 16th, with just $13 million (1,6 percent of the sector’s allocation) being earmarked for non-wage spending in learning and teaching materials and school infrastructure investments. With an estimated total of 8 000 schools, excluding Early Childhood Development (ECD), this would translate to less than $1 640 per school per year or $546 for each school per term. Per student, this would translate to less than $3,34 per year or $1,11 per child per term. Clearly this is insufficient to make a meaningful impact on the teaching and learning environment, and hence weak learning outcomes.

In fact, employment costs have been increasing over the recent past, thereby crowding out non-wage spending in the sector. For instance, non-wage allocation fell from 11,5 percent in 2012 to 1,6 percent in 2016. Hence, with less than 2 percent of the Budget being spent on non-wage investments, the education sector has experienced corrosion of learning environment in schools evidenced by dilapidated and inadequate school infrastructure and teaching-learning materials. Continued under-funding of the capital budget has resulted in an estimated deficit of 33 600 classrooms nationwide.

Fifty-four percent of which are for primary and secondary levels, whilst 46 percent is for ECD.

Whilst it is important to acknowledge the importance of a well-motivated and remunerated teacher, in facilitating learning, there is need to strike a balance between wage spending and investing in teaching and learning materials as well as building and improving school infrastructure.

These two are complementary and cannot substitute one another. It is trite to note that environments that are healthy, safe, protective and gender-sensitive, and provide adequate resources and facilities coupled with processes through which teachers use child-centred teaching approaches in well-managed classrooms and schools, are important in bettering education outcomes.

Evidence shows that even if children go to school, they often do not acquire the basic competencies due to absence of proper learning materials and conducive environment. This failure to learn puts children at a disadvantage at a very early stage of their development, and cannot meaningfully contribute to sustainable economic growth and development of the country.

In view of low investments in education, development partners continue to play a leading role in funding non-wage expenditures in education, such as teaching and learning materials. For example, 2015 estimates show that Government spending in teaching and learning material amounted to $16,9 million compared to the $61,3 million from development partners through the Education Development Fund (EDF). In 2016, the EDF support to education is projected at $23,8 million compared to $13,1 million from the Government.

Whilst these amounts still fall short of total requirements, lessons learnt from implementing the EDF has shown that increased investments can deliver real results in education. The combination of Government-donor support has indeed helped improve the access and quality of education, from the near collapse during the hyperinflation era.

According to the MICS 2014 results, primary net attendance increased from 90 percent in 2009 to 94 percent in 2014. Secondary net attendance expanded from 45 percent to 58 percent over the same period. Early childhood education has also expanded from 18 percent in 2009 to 22 percent of three to five year old children attending early childhood education programmes in 2014.

Despite these improvements, 27,2 percent of primary and secondary school going ages remain out of school, whilst the student classroom ratio in Government schools averages from 73 in ECD to between 45 and 44 for primary and secondary levels, against national targets of 30 pupils per classroom. This, thereby, heightens the calls for increased size and quality of investment in high impact non-wage education spending.

Moreso, reliance on development partner support remains unsustainable as shifts in donor priorities or funding constraints can be catastrophic and may reverse the gains recorded so far. Therefore, Government would need to substantially increase its investments towards non-wage education spending. This could be achieved through better expenditure prioritisation, civil service rationalisation to create room for non-wage spending and efficient use of the available resources. In addition, the $100 million savings under the proposed wage saving measures in education should be channelled towards increasing non-wage education spending.

These investments would need to be more equitable – to reach the poorest and marginalised, including those living with disabilities. This should be complemented by measures to strengthen learning assessment systems and accountability measures that involve key stakeholders.

Quality education is worth any cost. And the Government needs to take the lead in making real investments to protect and guarantee the millions of children their right to quality education, for an empowered society, free from poverty and conflicts.

Educated children are at the core of healthy, productive, prosperous and peaceful societies. If that is the future we want, as a country, we must invest in our children today. Even more importantly, real investment in quality education will help support progress towards the achievement of the SDGs, particularly Goal 4; which speaks to the need to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

Jecob Nyamadzawo is a Public Finance Analysist with UNICEF Zimbabwe and can be contacted on [email protected]