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Education financing in Zimbabwe

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File:Zimbabwean banknote collage, third dollar.png
Figure 1: The monetary range of Zimbabwean Dollars that increased during the period of hyperinflation.

Education financing in Zimbabwe refers to the public, private, household and international resources used to fund education in Zimbabwe. Since gaining independence in 1980 the provision of education has been a priority for the Zimbabwean government. However, education financing has experienced extreme fluctuations since independence due to changing government policies and the impact of structural adjustment policies.

Education is financed through government spending, household contributions, international aid and private donors. Government spending typically encompasses teacher training, school subsidies, teacher salaries, teaching and learning materials, and school infrastructure development as well as ensuring schools provide children with gender and age-appropriate water and sanitation facilities.[1] Household spending covers supplies such as uniforms, books, and stationary as well as transportation costs and school fees. In Zimbabwe, government spending is dominated by teacher salaries leaving households to fund a large portion of the non-wage costs. International aid consists of bilateral and multilateral donors that provide official development assistance, grants and loans.

To ensure education financing remains a priority the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an international blueprint for the provision of inclusive and equitable education.[2] SDG 4 dictates that national governments must achieve education investment levels of at least 4-6% GDP, and 15-20% of public expenditure, as determined through the 2015 Incheon Declaration.[3][4] Additionally, the Abidjan Principles provide a legal framework on the obligations of states to provide education to all without discrimination.[5] Overarching principle 5 dictates that states must fund and provide free, quality, public education and that they may only fund eligible private institutions if they comply with all applicable human rights laws.[6] These international benchmarks provide clear, measurable targets for the financing of education in Zimbabwe as well as providing guidance for the provision of equitable, accessible education.[3]

Despite Zimbabwe's ambitious commitments, education remains underfunded due to an ongoing debt crisis resulting from inherited colonial debt, a failed structural adjustment programme, and a period of intense hyperinflation. Annually, Zimbabwe loses more money in Illicit financial flows (IFFs) than it gains in education aid. Academics have suggested that all of this has resulted in a teaching and learning crisis that impacts economic growth, increases poverty and reduces educational attainment. This article will discuss each of these topics through a focus on education financing in Zimbabwe since 1980.

Historical development

Zimbabwe is a country located in Southeast Asia with a population of approximately 17 million people.[7] After 90 years of British colonial rule, Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, acquiring formal recognition as the Republic of Zimbabwe and inheriting an education system that academics have argued was racially biased and deeply unequal.[8] Academics such as Tighatonga J. Nhundu have argued that the colonial Rhodesian government constructed an education system that promoted racial segregation through making European education compulsory and universal whilst education for Black children was optional and required the payment of school fees.[9] Academic literature has argued that the education system for the black population was restrictive, with funding limited to 2% of Gross National Income (GNI) making the expansion of education impossible without additional sources of funding.[9] The colonial government spent as much as 20 times more per European child whilst shifting the burden of financing education onto African parents through cutting teacher salaries and increasing school fees.[8][9]

The post-independence government implemented socialist-oriented policies that aimed to promote 'growth with equity' and rectify historic inequalities.[8] The government implemented reforms in line with the principle of 'Education for all' through the provision of free and compulsory primary education, and affordable access to secondary education.[8][10] This was mandated through the 1987 Education act and resulted in the achievement of universal primary education by the end of the first decade of independence.[8][10] The government expanded the education system by building new schools, increasing teacher training and providing learning materials, with an emphasis on accessibility to education.[10] Since independence, literacy rates in Zimbabwe soared from 78% in 1982 to 93% in 2019, which is significantly higher than the global average of 87%.[7] Alarmingly, reports by Amnesty International have suggested that much of the progress made in the 1980s is being undermined by a mass exodus of teachers and a loss of resources due to a lack of education funding.[11]

Government expenditure on education

File:Government expenditure on education in Zimbabwe.png
Figure 2: Displaying government expenditure on education in Zimbabwe as a percentage of total government expenditure. Source: World Bank.

Government spending on education in Zimbabwe covers expenditure by all ministries, including the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) and the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development (MoHTESTD).[12] Government spending on education is measured using two standard indicators: education expenditure as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and education expenditure as a percentage of government spending. These indicators facilitate comparisons in spending over time, and reflect the priority given to education as well as the capacity of the government to meet international benchmarks such as the SDGs.[12]

File:Government expenditure on education in Zimbabwe - percentage of GDP UNESCO.png
Figure 3: Displaying government expenditure on education in Zimbabwe as a percentage of GDP. Note: there is no data between 2014 and 2023. Source: World Bank.

Figure 2 shows that government expenditure on education has fluctuated considerably since 2010. Following the economic collapse and hyperinflation of 2008, spending on education was low at just 8.5% of total government expenditure in 2010. As the economy stabilised under the multi-currency regime, spending increased sharply reaching 29.8% in 2010, where it remained close to 30% until 2015. This reflects a period of temporary fiscal recovery in Zimbabwe, during which the government prioritised the restoration of basic public services such as education.[13] After 2015, government spending declined again, falling to 10.5% of total expenditure by 2019 which was a direct result of renewed fiscal pressures and rising debt-servicing obligations.[11] Between 2019 and 2025, spending continued to fluctuate before increasing to 17.9% in 2025, according to current World Bank data.

Although there is no available data that displays government expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP between 2014 and 2023, the data shown in Figure 3 indicates that Zimbabwe has consistently fallen below international benchmarks. In 2023, education spending amounted to 0.4% GDP and 10.7% of total government expenditure, making Zimbabwe one of the lowest-spending countries globally. Additionally, the funds that are allocated to the education sector are dominated by teacher wages, with employment costs accounting for 91% of total expenditure in 2020, despite only being allocated 43% of the budget.[1] This results in very little funding for infrastructure, learning materials or learner support, which can be seen in the lack of financing for the BEAM assistance programme.

Education aid

Scholars such as Shizha and Kariwo have argued that education is crucial for development as it creates a dynamic workforce and promotes economic and social prosperity.[8] Education aid, therefore, serves to increase access to education so that developing countries are equipped with a well-informed, dynamic workforce.[14] Recognised by the OECD as the 'gold standard' of foreign aid, Official Development Assistance (ODA) refers to government aid that promotes and targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries.[15] Education is a key sector for stimulating economic growth and ODA provides funding that supports schools, training and educational initiatives to support development.

File:All Donors to Zimbabwe for Education during 2002–2021.png
Figure 4: All donors to Zimbabwe for Education from 2002-2021, and which sectors the funds were targeted towards. Source: Aid Atlas

Data from Aid Atlas displays that between 2002 and 2021, Zimbabwe received an estimated total of $541 million in development finance for education, of which 96.9% was provided as grants and 2.4% as loans.[16] This makes ODA a large source of education financing for Zimbabwe as the state is currently facing a severe, long-term debt crisis and requires immediate financial relief without further repayment burdens.[11] The United Kingdom (UK) has been the largest education aid donor, providing a total of $233 million in ODA grants to Zimbabwe, whereas Germany (the second largest donor) has provided $79.3 million.[16] As shown by Figure 4, primary education received the largest share of funding ($214 million), followed by higher education ($80.5 million), upper secondary education ($76.6 million), education facilities and training ($60 million), and education policy and management ($57 million).[16]

A significant form of ODA to Zimbabwe has been the Education Development Fund (EDF), a UNICEF managed, multi-donor fund that partnered with the MoPSE to improve equitable access to quality education.[17] The UK was a key contributor to this fund, donating $37 million in 2015 to provide quality schooling to children in disadvantaged rural areas.[18] Furthermore, UK donations supported programmes aimed at empowering women and girls and supporting young mothers to return to school after giving birth.[19]

In Zimbabwe, the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) is the largest form of educational assistance to date.[14] Unlike ODA, BEAM is a national school assistance programme launched by the government of Zimbabwe in 2001 as part of the Enhanced Social Protection Project (ESPP).[14] This project was a response to worsening socioeconomic conditions, as over 30% of enrolled children were not finishing primary school and O-level pass rates had fallen to 11%.[20] This was argued to be problematic as Zimbabwe was once regarded as the most literate state on the African continent.[21] To combat these conditions, BEAM was introduced as a social safety net to help orphaned and vulnerable children with the payment of tuition fees, exam fees and school levies.[14] BEAM was entirely funded by the Government of Zimbabwe until 2008, when a period of hyperinflation and economic decline caused a shortage of government resources. From this point until 2014, the UK's DFID significantly contributed to the funding of BEAM, providing £11.6 million to the project in 2013 that reached 343,000 children.[22] After this period of assistance, BEAM funding increased from $7 million in 2015, to $25 million in 2021, yet this funding remained insufficient as it equated to just $16.7 per child annually.[23] Since 2022, the BEAM programme has experienced persistent delays and incomplete payments, which have been partially attributed to the channelling of funds through the Ministry of Public Service rather than MoPSE because this has created administrative inconsistencies and concerns about misdirected resources.[24]

IMF and World Bank conditionalities and education

From gaining independence in 1980 until the early 1990s, Zimbabwe pursued a highly interventionist, socialist economic strategy. This changed in 1991, when the country adopted an Economic and Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) funded by the IMF and World Bank that pushed the economy towards a market driven, capitalist approach.[25] ESAP fundamentally restructured Zimbabwe with its focus on fiscal austerity, trade liberalisation and domestic deregulation.[26] The program required the government to reduce its fiscal deficit from 10.7% GDP to 5% by cutting recurrent spending, including a 25% reduction in the civil service and the introduction of fees in the education and health sectors.[26] Simultaneously, ESAP devalued Zimbabwe's currency to stimulate exports and investment through reducing the cost of local products; however, this reform was unsuccessful as it coincided with a severe drought that contracted GDP and catalysed the high inflation rates in Zimbabwe.[27]

Brett and Winter have argued that the ESAP 'experiment' has been an almost unmitigated failure and a large contributor to the country's economic crisis.[28] After its introduction, Zimbabwe's economic performance decreased and poverty became more widespread, which inhibited the ability of parents to afford the school fees introduced under the 1991 amendment of the Education Act.[10] This amendment reversed Zimbabwe's initial commitment to free and compulsory primary education that was made in the 1987 act.[10] Despite this, rural primary education remained primarily free through a process of decentralisation, which resulted in less financial support for schools in poor, rural areas and a widened gap in education quality.[10] Parents remained responsible for the funding of buildings, school facilities and sports even though the poverty rate was increasing. To assist with this, the government introduced the Social Development Fund (SDF) to help fund education for poor, disadvantaged and orphaned children; however, in many cases this fund was too small and experienced delays due to poor management.[10]

In the aftermath of ESAP, Zimbabwe increasingly relied on external borrowing to finance budget deficits, leading to the accumulation of extensive arrears by 2000. Conditionalities imposed by the IMF and World bank have, therefore, been regarded by academics in ZIMCODD as inappropriate public policies for Zimbabwe as they have directly contributed to the ongoing debt crisis through increasing poverty and decreasing the access and quality of education.[29]

Debt and education

Zimbabwe's education system has been plagued by a debt crisis for decades, beginning when the country inherited a $700 million debt from the Rhodesian government. This grew throughout the 1980s due to large droughts and additional loans used to pay the Rhodesian debts and fund post-war reconstruction.[30] By the end of the 1980s Zimbabwe was spending a high proportion of government revenue on debt repayments, however during this period primary school enrolment rates increased from 60.4% to 115.8% and secondary school enrolment rates doubled from 7.8% to 15%.[31] This indicates that the Zimbabwean government initially tried to prioritise and protect education while servicing rising debts. This was disrupted during the ESAP of the 1990s, which required the government to cut education spending in alignment with forced austerity measures.

File:Total debt service (% of GNI) - Zimbabwe.png
Figure 5: Graph displaying total debt servicing as a % of GNI in Zimbabwe. Source: World Bank open data.

As shown in Figure 5, Zimbabwe was spending a quarter of its Gross National Income (GNI) on debt repayments in the late 1990s. After the year 2000, Zimbabwe defaulted on its external debt repayments and fell into arrears, leading the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to withdraw lending which blocked Zimbabwe's access to concessional finance. By 2025, external arrears were estimated at $7.4 billion.[32] This increased their domestic borrowing, which amounted to 37.3% of all domestic debt‑related payments in 2023.[29]

Unable to borrow money from external creditors, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe printed money to pay for government expenses and to compensate for the collapse in agricultural production, resulting in a period of hyperinflation peaking at 213 million per cent in 2008.[33] High inflation rates and currency depreciation have contributed to the erosion of teacher salaries and negatively impacted educational attainment and the provision of education services.[1]

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) identified Zimbabwe's total debt as equivalent to 99.6% GDP in 2024, an increase of 14.9% since 2021.[11] Zimbabwe's total debt amounted to $17.7 billion in 2024, with 72% of this owed to foreign creditors, whilst 28% was contracted domestically.[33] ZIMCODD have noted that Zimbabwe has very limited chances of ever escaping the debt trap due to the persistent debt crisis that is impacting the credit worthiness of the country.[29]

Zimbabwe's debt crisis has caused the government to spend more on debt servicing than education, reducing investments needed to maintain quality education and support poverty reduction initiatives.[11] The inadequately low wages and poor working conditions of teachers, coupled with a severe cost of living crisis, has resulted in a mass teacher exodus with approximately 300 teachers leaving per month and a reported deficit of 50,000 teachers in 2023.[11] Kanyongo Gibbs has argued that this 'brain drain' is reversing the gains made during the first two decades of independence where the government rolled out a low-cost teacher-training scheme that significantly boosted the number of qualified teachers.[10] Despite their low wages, teacher salaries take up a very high proportion of the education sector budget, leaving a minimal amount of funding for infrastructure development or school supplies and an increased reliance on household contributions.[34] Cuts to government funding have reduced the support for poor families to fund education, resulting in increased school drop-out rates and poor student performance.[35]

Illicit financial flows and education

The term Illicit financial flows refers to the illegal transfer of funds across national borders via corrupt methods, such as money laundering, tax evasion, trade mispricing and bribery by international companies.[36][37] In practice, they can range from an individual, tax-free transfer of funds to more complex schemes involving criminal networks that operate within multi-jurisdictional structures to conceal ownership.[37] IFFs are argued to be one of the biggest challenges to development for developing countries, with estimates that Africa has lost $1.3 trillion through IFFs since 1980.[23] Within this, it is estimated that Zimbabwe lost over $32 billion through IFFs between 2000 and 2020.[38] This can be seen in the gold mining sector, which contains huge potential to boost the economy as one of Zimbabwe's largest exports, but is suffering from IFFs through corruption and smuggling.[39] Zimbabwe's 'Gold Mafia' is larger than the government and has been known to involve government officials, such as ambassador Uebert Angel who offered to use his diplomatic privileges to carry over $1 billion of dirty cash into the country.[40] This provides a small glimpse into the ways that illicit financial flows operate throughout all of Zimbabwe's major industries, the impacts of which exacerbate the debt and education crises.

Zimbabwe loses an estimated $100 million a month in gold smuggling and illegal mining, whilst tax evasion and avoidance further decrease profit.[39] These illicit outflows largely exceed the amount of aid received and could otherwise be used to finance education, healthcare, and infrastructure, yet the government is forced to rely on loans to fund public services which further increases the debt crisis in Zimbabwe.[38][39] Therefore, Goal 16.4 of the SDGs aims to reduce illicit financial flows, combat all forms of organised crime, and strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets.[41] By recovering stolen assets and reducing IFFs, governments are said to have increased resources to finance public services and achieve the SDGs, which would allocate more funds to the education system in Zimbabwe and increase the quality and accessibility of education.[38] In fact, Zimbabwe loses an estimated $1.5 billion of gold annually, which amounts to 13 times more than the total budgetary allocations for BEAM between 2015 and 2021.[23]

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) estimates that the Zimbabwean government loses $51.3 million per year to international tax abuse.[42] This is pertinent to the topic of education financing as Zimbabwe spends an estimated $306 per primary school child, but if the government were to recover just 20% of financial losses that come from tax abuse, an estimated $10.3 million would be added to the education budget which could allow an extra 33,562 children to attend primary school.[42] On a larger scale, closing the loopholes used for tax abuse and ensuring fair taxation is estimated to raise an additional $146 billion in Africa each year, with the potential to send up to 25 million children to primary school.[43]

References

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