3. How does the existing resource demand influence the remote rural ECD school management?
5.2 Remote rural ECD schools’ responses to resource demand
5.2.4 Financial/Funding resources
From the responses mentioned above and EMIS data, it was apparent that the schools had desisted from the main objective of providing suitable education to the learners which was contrary to the reasons given in the following researches: UNESCO (2010) is indicating the benefits of smaller class sizes. Montie et al. (2006) and Naudeau et al. (2011) conducted research which shows that small class sizes have a positive influence on child development.
The reasons given by the participants on over-crowding children to fund-raise for para- professionals‟ allowances is supported by SEAMEO INNOTECH (2011) who asserts that schools should maintain teachers‟ individual needs, so as to retain the teachers and motivate them to get the best out of them. This was supported by Doherty et al. (2006) who posit that a teacher‟s wellbeing has a bearing on the quality of education provided to the ECD children.
Similarly, the transformational/invitational leaders (Burns, 2007; Bush, 2010) respond to the individual needs of their followers for effective service delivery. However, it is argued that these school leaders are taking advantage of the children to motivate their teachers.
segregated by the government, considering how remote rural families were suffering from poverty due to drought. HIV/AIDS is claiming many lives, leaving child-headed families due to poor health facilities and lack of education in remote rural areas. This is what one school head had to say:
BEAM policy is depriving and disadvantaging the ECD learners. The ECD children are not eligible for grants. They pay levies for their education and obtain no grants from the government. This BEAM is a government grant given to school-going children from primary to secondary levels. The anticipated recipients of BEAM are the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) maybe due to HIV/Aids. This BEAM is meant to fight financial problems affecting the ability of children to access education due to increasing HIV/Aids deaths and poverty in the country (Vukosi School Head).
Participants confirmed that the entire levy that came from the few parents who afforded to pay each term were used to pay allowances for the para-professionals, buying teaching and learning resources and to finance these para-professional staff development workshops and touring other schools. This was confirmed by one of the school heads:
Parents are paying levies as our source of revenue in the school. These levies are solely used for ECD purposes, like buying stationery, paying the para-professionals and sending the para-professionals for workshops in the district or outside (Dambara School Head).
These aforementioned responses communicate the positive responses given by communities to the call made by the government to establish and maintain the ECD classes in primary schools across the country (Education act, 1996a; Statutory Instruments, 106 of 2005, 12 of 2005; Chikutuma & Mapolisa, 2013). This concurs with the Chinese government which puts the responsibility of funding ECD on the local communities (Korea Institute of Child Care &
Education, 2011). This is also happening in Kenya; parents and communities are funding ECD (Myers, 2006) and prevalent in Malawi where communities are contributing to the construction and running of ECD schools through paying in cash and/or in kind, labour and providing building materials (Rose, 2010). Principle Number 3 of the Child Friendly Schools policy (UNESCO, 2012) acknowledges that in most countries local communities are funding ECD by contracting para-professionals and the monitoring teams, developing the school
infrastructure, subsidising the training of teachers and their supervisors and providing teaching and learning materials (UNESCO, 2010). However, these findings differ from the Zimbabwean Education Act (25:04, p. 7) which stipulates the payment of „lowest possible fees consistent with the maintenance of high standards of education…… are including the making of grants and other subsidies to schools by the government.‟ Zimbabwe, unlike other States, gives no grants and other subsidies to the ECD children. ECD schools rely solely on funding by parents.
Most school heads lamented that some parents were defaulting on their levy payments and this had negative repercussions on attempts to provide adequate and suitable resources to the ECD learners. Some school heads were persisting, but to no avail. The head of Mash school said:
Money is not sufficient. Our pupils; the ECD A and B pay US$15 per term just like the grade 1-7. We even take some money paid by the other grades to pay these para- professionals but still it doesn’t work. The parents are not paying the levies (Mash School Head).
From the above-mentioned responses, non-payment of levies was common in the case study schools especially for the ECD children. All the school heads raised concerns about the fact that defaulting on levy payments was not unexpected since the remote rural areas are poverty stricken. For instance this school head affirmed that:
In these remote rural areas, our parents are really poor; it is not easy to bring up a family while the parents are not working…. They don’t have any other source of income besides their fields … If the rains fail them it means even the school is affected, our parents are willing but they are poor… They complain of hunger, they don’t have where to start (Muzorori School Head).
The aspect of poverty in remote rural areas is justified by IFAD (2010), Madu (2010) emphasising that among other countries, poverty in Zimbabwe has deepened because of erratic rainfall, a lack of government support and present economic instability. Defaulting on levies by parents is acknowledged by Mugweni (2011) who purports that while the country is economically stressed, parents may fail to pay fees and levies for their children, communities
should share the costs of running the ECD programme to lessen the intensity of the burden on the parents. The Invitational leadership theory, believes that parents can be fully involved in the education of their children if invited into the process by school leaders (Purkey, 2006).