UNICEF unveils $70 million boost for Zimbabwean schoolchildren

Zimbabwe has received a cash injection of $70 million to ensure access to schooling and improve the quality of education for children in the Southern African country, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced.

Recent assessments revealed serious shortages of learning materials, textbooks and supplies in schools, with one study revealing a ratio of 10 pupils for every textbook across Zimbabwe.

Another review showed that 20 per cent of primary schools had no textbooks at all for English, mathematics or an African language.

“The impact of the deteriorating quality in education is stark,” UNICEF said in a news release issued on 14 September. “Grade 7 examination pass rates declined from 53 per cent in 1999 to 33 per cent in 2007.”

In addition, almost 50 per cent of Zimbabwe’s children primary school graduates do not go on secondary school, UNICEF said.

“The programmes we launch today are momentous,” said UNICEF representative in Zimbabwe Peter Salama.

Mr. Salama noted that the UN-backed schemes “will ensure that over 700,000 of Zimbabwe’s vulnerable children are in school, creating a huge demand for education,” as well as guaranteeing that every child has a textbook in all of the country’s 5,300 primary schools, within 12 months.

The support is also expected to pay school fees for a large number of the country’s orphaned and vulnerable children.