The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has issued a stern warning to schools refusing to accept local currency for payment of school fees.
Deputy Minister Edgar Moyo, said such conduct is illegal and should parents encounter such scenarios they must contact district school inspectors so that corrective measures can be taken.
Minister Moyo made these remarks while addressing concerns raised by members of Parliament in the August house.
“In areas where school heads are refusing to accept the Zimbabwe dollar and they only prefer the US dollar, that is illegal. I will repeat again, if that happens, let the parents get in contact with the district schools inspectors so that corrective measures are taken,” he said.
“We are already talking to the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on measures to be taken to correct such things. I may not speak about them here because they are still under discussion but we are very much alive to that situation. We wonder what the interest is in heads who do not want to accept the Zimbabwe dollar as legal tender in their schools when the laws of the land are very clear. “
Minister Moyo said discussions are underway to put stern policies in place to tensure that all schools comply to government regulations.
“We want to take this opportunity to warn them to say that there must not be a reason for stern measures against schools. They have to comply – the issues of compliance were discussed here and we have to find ways of strengthening our statutes to ensure total compliance by our officers on the ground,” he said.
“That is not allowed not, to accept any legal tender in the country. A circular was sent together with the other circulars I spoke about, actually there is a section on the circulars on the issue of the currencies to be accepted in schools.”
The legislatures had raised concerns that a number of schools were refusing to accept the local currency and in cases where they accepted it, thru would use the black market rate instead of the interbank rate for the day.They (legislators) however highlighted that as much as schools are compelled to accept local currency, government needs to ascertain that the schools can still manage to operate because where they get their resources they pay either in forex or at black market rate.
