By JOWIT SALUSEKI –
CHILDREN in poor countries face many barriers to accessing education.
Some barriers are obvious, like not having a school to go to, while others are more subtle, like learners being sent away from school because their guardians have failed to pay in full for the school requisites.
Still other barriers can include not having a class teacher who is a well trained to effectively help children to learn.
Added to that is the irony that some remote based schools do not have enough teachers to achieve universal primary education, let alone secondary education, but also that many of the teachers that are currently working could also be untrained, leading to children failing to adequately learn and master the basics, such as in mathematics and science subjects.
Globally, the United Nations (UN) recently estimated that 1.6 million additional new teachers are required for the world to achieve universal primary education, and 5.1 million more are needed to achieve universal lower secondary education by 2030.
The Zambian Government has, in this regard, scored a mark in teacher recruitment although there is still room for improvement in order to reach the required teacher-pupil ratio.

•The Zambian Government has, in this regard, scored a mark in teacher recruitment although there is still room for improvement in order to reach the required teacher-pupil ratio.

But all this achievement will amount to nothing if school authorities continue to send away pupils who have challenges in paying tuition fees.
This seems like an attainable feat if a learner has access to the classroom because they know that they will have a chance of getting a decent education, unlike a situation where such learners are sent way from attending lessons.
While it is understandable that Government has continued to build school infrastructure to alleviate the suffering of pupils, especially in the outskirts, who are often squeezed into overcrowded classrooms, some school authorities are frustrating the State’s noble cause to achieve education for all by 2030 since they have gone on a crusade to turn away pupils who fail to pay school fees in full.
The Ministry of General Education recently directed all school administrators not to attach the condition of paying school fees in full to school admissions.
But some schools have seemingly defied the directive and are sending away pupils with impunity.
Ministry of General Education spokesperson Hillary Chipango said in a statement that: “The ministry in the last few days has received numerous complaints from the public that some schools were forcing parents and guardians to pay school fees in full before their children get admission slips.”
He said the ministry would like to appeal to parents and guardians to honour the agreements they enter into with school authorities to avoid inconveniences that may arise as a result of them not paying school fees.
However, some school authorities in the country, especially on the Copperbelt Province, are busy chasing excluding pupils from class for non payment of the school fees in full.
Isolated though these incidents may be, some parents are worried that their children will end up going to ill equipped community schools where the situation is dire as it is a true reality that in most poorly run community schools, there are reports that in some instances up to 100 children are crammed in a single classroom on average, hence the quality of education is nothing to write home about.
The parents are worried should their children be continuously excluded from State run schools on the premise of not paying tuition in totality.
There, children will find it depressing that it is not just a lack of classrooms that is the problem in some of the community schools where they will be forced to go, but also that the schools lack all the basic facilities that one would expect a school to have, like running water and clean toilets.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes it clear that every child has the right to free basic education, so that poverty and lack of money should not be a barrier to schooling.
In many developing countries over the last decades, governments have announced the abolition of school fees and as a result, there has been improved increases in the number of children going to school.
But parents are concerned that should relevant authorities fail to intervene by stopping school managers from sending away pupils, many of the poor families, for which school remains too expensive, will have their children forced to stay at home.
Some guardians are extremely worried that this is the situation that is about to grip some families in the country as school authorities have been refusing to allow pupils pay the school fees in instalments to enable the learners stay in class ever since the school term commenced in January.
Abraham Daka, a parent from Ndola, has had his son sent away from school because he only paid K400 out of the total amount of K800 which he was required to pay per term.
Despite pleading with the school management to allow his son continue attending classes as he scouts for money to settle the balance, Mr Daka’s plea has fallen on deaf ears.
Mr Daka disclosed that the school authorities are desperate for the money because they are running a money lending scheme which has the blessing of the Parent Teachers Association (PTA).
Mr Daka said the PTA chairman of the named school has a loan with the school amounting to about K45,000 which he is struggling to pay back.
A teacher at the same school, who preferred anonymity for fear of victimisation, said it was indeed true that the school authorities were sending away pupils who had failed to pay their school fees in full because the school management was frantic in getting the fees from the pupils in order to loan themselves the monies.
The teacher revealed that the school authorities were even failing to do minor repairs to school infrastructure in spite of the colossal amount of money they were collecting from the parents.
He said the school management always waited for the Government to give them grants in order to repair and replace even small things such as broken glass panes and padlocks.
Another parent, Esther Munthali, feared that sending pupils away from class would entail that poor families will remain in the cycle of poverty that goes on for generations.
She said: “In Africa in general and Zambia in particular, while education is theoretically free, in practice ‘informal fees’ see parents forced to pay for ‘compulsory items’ like uniform, books, pens, extra lessons, examination fees or funds to support the school buildings.”
“In other places, the lack of functioning public schools means that parents have no choice but to send their children to private schools which are unaffordable for the poorest families who risk making themselves destitute in their efforts to get their children have access to better lives through education,” she said.
Patrick Banda is equally worried that sending pupils away from school will make poverty stricken households to start choosing which children to send to school.
“Many children from families with less income will definitely miss out on education due to the belief that there’s less value in educating a girl than a boy if the school authorities insist on having school fees paid in full,” he said.
He said for people in peri-urban areas and villages, especially in view of the current farming season, children who are supposed to be in school will be sent to work or be made to stay at home to look after siblings and do household chores.