The Sunday Mail
Soon after independence, Cde Mugabe’s Government expanded the education sector to meet the demands of a population that had been denied the right by the Smith colonialist regime.
The authorities declared primary education a basic human right and made it free and compulsory.
The primary school age entry limit was also waived to accommodate thousands who had been disenfranchised by the liberation war.
An intensive national programme to reconstruct schools and build new ones was also launched. In addition, Government paid a tuition grant for every child enrolled or attending a registered primary or secondary school. In the few years following independence, primary schools increased by over 42 percent from 3 161 to 4 504, while secondary schools increased from 197 in 1980 to 1 502 in 1989.
Enrolments also increased by over 200 percent across the entire system.
Primary school enrolments jumped from about 820 000 in 1979 to 2,08 million in 1990.
There was a corresponding increase in the number of educators, with the number of teachers increasing from 18 483 in 1979 to 60 886 by the end of the decade.
President Mugabe also established a full-fledged Ministry of Higher Education in 1988 to take charge of all tertiary education consisting of teacher training, technical and vocational education and university education.
By 1997, more than 77 percent of primary school teachers and about 89 percent of secondary school teachers were trained. More than three decades after independence, Zimbabwe now has the highest literacy rate in Africa as over 90 percent of the population can read and write.
Government has also established a State university in each of the country’s 10 provinces. There are also plans to establish at least one vocational training centre in each of the 60 administrative districts. President Mugabe has been pushing for a skills-oriented education system.
