Stakeholders in the education sector in Zimbabwe are urging the government to improve the management of the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) funds to ensure adequate service delivery at learning institutions.
BEAM is a national school assistance program launched by the government in 2001 to pay school fees for orphans and vulnerable children.
However, schools have complained that funds from the initiative are disbursed late into school accounts, affecting their daily operations.
According to the latest statistics, the government owes schools at least US$56 million in arrears for BEAM payments.
A recent report by the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) highlighted that corruption and mismanagement of BEAM funds affect school operations. The report also underscored that local learning institutions are underfunded, with allocated amounts falling short of recommended regional standards.
In an interview with CITE, the President of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ), Obert Masaraure, reiterated that the late disbursements negatively affect the day-to-day running of schools and also impact the morale of school staff.
Masaraure also noted that the government needs to deposit BEAM funds directly into school accounts from the treasury, alleging that sending the money through different ministries opens loopholes for corruption and mishandling of funds.
“It is unfortunate that BEAM has been reduced to a mere scheme used by the government to avoid providing state-funded education. Why are we not having direct tuition grants for all learners paid directly to schools to benefit all learners?” Masaraure said.
“There are many financial obligations that the government is failing to meet in terms of education service delivery. Learners need sanitary pads in schools, stationery, and learning institutions need funds to meet overhead expenses. But we have a government notorious for not meeting its financial responsibilities due to corruption.”
Masaraure added that the funds allocated to schools at the national level are too low to meet demands, hence there is a need to revise the budget and align it with the Dakar declaration.
“According to the Dakar declaration, we should be getting at least 20 percent of the national budget and at least nine percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But as it stands, we are only getting 17 percent for the entirety of the education sector, tertiary education included,” he said.
“We need these allocations to be separated, with primary and secondary schools having their own allocation, and tertiary education having its own. There is a lot that needs to be taken care of financially—human resources, wages, among others—and failure to adequately cater for all this has resulted in low morale among teachers and other school staff.”
To address these challenges, Masaraure said the government needs to increase allocated funds and devolve education management to provincial levels.
“As ARTUZ, we proposed a financing model that the government can adopt to ensure adequate financing in schools. Primary and secondary schools must have their own allocation, and tertiary education must have its own. We should not be bundled together because our needs are different,” he said.
“The government must also devolve the management of schools to provincial and regional levels. Communities must have a say in how their schools are run. We cannot have everything centralized in Harare; this hampers service delivery for us.”
President of the National Association of Secondary Heads (NASH), Arthur Maphosa, reiterated that the delay in disbursing BEAM funds to schools affects daily operations, hindering adequate service delivery.
“BEAM is a good initiative that supports learners who cannot afford to pay fees. Some are orphans, and some come from poverty-stricken families. The challenge we have as schools is that those responsible for paying the funds are not fulfilling their obligations on time,” Maphosa said.
“You will note that it is not the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education that is responsible for disbursing the funds, but the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. This could contribute to the delay.”
Maphosa said when funds are delayed, there is no consideration for fluctuating rates, and the money owed loses value.
“They disburse funds at the rate applicable when the application was made. Due to delays, the application may have been made when the rate was low. They disburse funds based on that rate, which disadvantages schools because the value of the money erodes. This affects the financial obligations of learning institutions. Schools run out of materials needed for daily work, fall behind in bill payments—electricity and water—and end up drowning in debt,” he said.
A woman whose niece benefited from the BEAM program said they face many challenges.
She said there are processes to follow when moving residences or changing schools.
“My niece is an orphan, so we registered her under the program. For primary school, we lived in the city center, and she attended school there. Then we moved to the high-density suburbs when she started secondary school,” the woman narrated.
“We were informed that we needed a letter from her former school confirming she was under BEAM. The process of obtaining the letter and registering her in the new district was very complicated. There was a lot of back-and-forth between offices. In the end, I gave up. She is still in secondary school, but now we are paying for her, no matter how difficult it is. The process needs to be simplified.”
