Once the best education system on the African continent, Zimbabwe’s school system is now on the edge of disintegration. Outside the capital, at Mufakose 3, teachers leave their jobs to take better paid jobs.

In the first two months of this year, 8000 other teachers have also done the same in addition to the 25,000 who fled the country in 2007.

The Los Angeles Times reports that before last month’s national elections, teachers went on strike and their salaries were raised by 70 percent, but even this was too little because of hyperinflation.

At rallies before the elections, which saw the ruling ZANU-PF party lose its parliamentary majority for the first time in 28 years of power, President Robert Mugabe made a point of giving out computers to teach children computer literacy. At Mufakose 1 High School, 10 new computers were donated last year by the government. But only one is still working, and students never get to touch it. It’s been taken over by school office workers for typing letters.

According to Mail & Guardian Online, teachers who don’t leave their jobs have to sell sweets and other goods to supplement their meager salaries.

But the school has lost its glitter after years of underfunding. Like all government schools, it lacks everything from textbooks to toilet paper. Infrastructure at schools is in a state of total dilapidation. The Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, one of two teachers’ representative bodies in the country, said the fact that authorities require parents to provide chairs is testimony to the state of decay in most public schools.

Zimbabwean students are mute about their future but a great number of them want to believe that one day they will have one of the best education systems in the world. Takavafira Zhou, the president of the Teachers’ Union, explains why this is so important.

“The education system is a vital hub of the country. It has a ripple effect. In the long term, the country will suffer very much.”

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