Private schools win case over fee hikes

By Violet Gonda
22 September 2006

It was good news for private schools this week when a High Court Judge ordered Aeneas Chigwedere the Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, not to close the schools or arrest the authorities for raising fees and levies.

Because of high inflation, desperate schools have been forced to increase fees but with the rules crafted by the regime of Robert Mugabe, schools are not allowed to raise fees without the approval of the government.

The Minister warned in parliament recently that he was giving non-government schools two weeks to regularise their position regarding fees for the new term, failure of which they would face prosecution.

Facing a deadline, which was expiring this past Tuesday, non governmental schools working under the umbrella name - Association of Trust Schools (ATS) – successfully made an urgent application arguing that the Education Act did not permit the minister to close schools over fees.

ATS chairman Jameson Timba told SW Radio Africa; “We were concerned that the Honourable Minister was misrepresenting the Education Act as amended, in that the determination of fees for the third term of 2006 are only looked at or reviewed by assessing the accumulated consumer price index for the proceeding term, which is the Second Term.”

He said Chigwedere wanted fees to be revised from Term One of 2006, which is basically unlawful. The schools had been forced to shut done over the same issue in May 2004 and were concerned that this would happen again, so they rushed to the courts as a pre-emptive action.

The three respondents in the case were the Minister of Education, the Secretary of Education and the Police Commissioner.

Justice Hungwe ruled that these authorities should not request, instigate or effect the closure of private schools that are being maintained by the Association of Trust Schools. The ATS currently represents 62 schools countrywide.

The schools had also submitted their application for fee approvals for third term 2006 but even though the new term opened early this month they are yet to receive a response from the Secretary of Education. Timba said; “So any action by the Minister before those applications have been adjudicated by the Secretary will then be unlawful.”

He added; “The court gave the Secretary five days to respond to the application and by end of today (Friday) the Secretary should have responded to all the schools. If he hasn’t done so he will be in contempt of court.”

Asked if the ATS has support from the parents who will have to fork out the increased fees during this hard times he responded by saying; “We are not fighting to increase fees but fighting to maintain schools and the standards of service they offer.”

Timba said parents are generally supportive with “90% of parents having already paid provisional fees subject to them being approved by the Secretary and they have no qualms about this.”

Some private school like Arundel School Trust has pegged fees at ZW$280 000. The non-governmental schools say the fees are being adjusted for inflation every term therefore presenting a nominal increase rather than an increase in real terms. Timba explained; “So the fees that we were paying two years ago are exactly the same fees that we are paying today. The only difference is that the dollar is not having the same value.”

We were not able to get a comment from authorities from the Ministry of Education.