for registration, for example, basic infrastructure and their registration status may disqualify them from getting funding. RDCs, therefore, mostly cater for the economically and socially disadvantaged rural popu- lation and they are supposed to subsidise operational costs of schools under their authority, with communities bearing the bulk of the costs of rural education. Most RDCs with their narrow revenue bases lack the capacity to develop and support schools that fall under their responsibil- ity, while the rural communities are generally poor. The relinquishing by government of the provision of rural education to RDCs and rural com- munities suggests some vestiges of the pre-independence experiences whereby the white regimes were reluctant to assume responsibility for the education of the black majority. Even RDCs in some parts of the country are exploring possibilities of handing over responsibility of some schools under their authority to church organisations. These developments have created what Drury (2013) calls opportunities for exclusion and margin- alisation. A common feature of rural schools, therefore, is the challenges experienced in providing educational services among the rural poor and this makes social justice central to this discussion on rural education (Cuervo 2012).
to which access to education has been achieved, unlike the traditional focus on enrolments as the main proxy of access.
In the first decade of independence focus was on affording access to the previously excluded and disadvantaged black majority. One of the mea- sures taken to enhance access was construction of schools particularly in rural areas and priority was given to construction of rural day secondary schools in each district. The early period was characterised by a phenom- enal increase in enrolments and expansion in education in general which has been hailed as a success story on the African continent. Despite the expansion in the education sector, access to education in rural areas has remained limited due to several factors. For instance, indications are that provisioning of education especially in rural areas is still inadequate. The country is reported to have a deficit of 2000 schools and the rural areas are the most affected, with an estimated shortfall of 1425 schools and with a significant deficit in resettlement areas (The Herald, 19 September 2019; Sunday News, 21 October 2018; The Herald, 29 June 2014).
Children in these areas have to travel prohibitive distances to the nearest schools (as much as 15 km in some cases). Distance in this respect is a major obstacle to access and participation in education and, in addition, partly creates two other problems that are features of rural education, namely irregular attendance and school dropout.
A major barrier to access to education is poverty or the economic dis- advantage of rural areas which again often results in irregular attendance and high dropout rates among the rural learners. The latter is estimated to be as high as 50% in some disadvantaged areas of the country (Education Coalition of Zimbabwe, cited in Maravanyika 2018). Poverty amongst most rural parents, as noted earlier, makes it difficult for them to meet such costs as tuition and examination fees and levies that are required by schools. Schools, on the other hand, have limited resource bases and generally depend on tuition fees and levies to fund their opera- tions. Hence, although official policy stipulates that no child should be excluded from schools for non-payment of fees, and that schools and parents or guardians should come to some arrangement about the pay- ment of the fees, many schools do not adhere to the policy and barring learners from school for non-payment of the various fees and levies is common in rural schools. The magnitude and impact of the exclusions is
described by two newly qualified teachers in a study by Magudu (2014) respectively as follows:
When pupils are sent away, I am left with 6, 9 or 12 pupils [out of a class of over 50]. I won’t stop teaching and when they return I will be done with a topic and it becomes a problem to assist them to make up for the lost time … some pupils may disappear when fees are demanded and only resurface at the end of the term for tests.
I have a Grade 2 pupil who just stopped coming to school … if pupils are regularly excluded from class for non-payment of fees they cease to appreciate the value of education. But is it proper for a child to drop out of school at Grade 2?
The periodic exclusion of significant numbers of learners from school for non-payment of fees results in loss of learning and in some cases chil- dren dropping out quite early in their school career and not completing Grade 7 or the primary school cycle. The children usually leave school without basic skills to enable them to function in society, for example, literacy skills. Besides learners who do not complete the primary school cycle, indications are that 20% of learners in the country do not proceed from Grade 7 to Form 1 or lower secondary school which is considered to be part of basic education that all children are entitled to. In some disadvantaged areas the problem is more profound. For instance, a transi- tion rate from Grade 7 to Form 1 of 48.6% has been cited in one district of the country (MoPSE 2018). These developments reflect some chal- lenges with realisation of the MDGs of universal education. Furthermore, they contradict the goals of education policy, for instance, automatic pro- motion whose aim was to expand access and promote equality of oppor- tunity. They suggest a regression into the bottlenecks that had characterised the colonial education system and education reforms which focus on what Fraser (2001, p. 82) calls affirmative remedies that are “aimed at correcting inequitable outcomes of social arrangements without disturb- ing the underlying framework that generates them”. The inadequate attention to structurally entrenched inequalities, therefore, has been an obstacle to long term solutions to the problems of rural education.
Access to education in rural areas has further been limited by the polit- ical instability that the country has experienced most notably since 2008.
The political violence and other related activities which usually occur during election time affects school attendance and in some rural prov- inces teachers have often been targets of political attacks and intimida- tion. In 2009 for instance, the effects of political violence included some teachers being forced to relocate, failure by some schools to attract quali- fied teachers, and the closure of schools in the affected areas (Ndlovu 2013; UNICEF 2018). In a nutshell, the overall impact of political vio- lence has been the weakening of provision (implying marginalisation), loss of learning opportunities and a decline in quality of education in these areas.
Generally, access to education in rural Zimbabwe is limited as educa- tion is poorly delivered and unfairly distributed. Poverty seems to be at the centre of the different forms of exclusions that characterise rural education.