Latest News Editor's Choice


Opinion / Columnist

18 Binga schools post 0% pass rate and Zanu PF post 80% rural vote regardless - thx to voter rigging mastery

17 Feb 2023 at 15:02hrs | Views
"18 Binga schools record 0% passes!" screamed the headlines in Newsday Zimbabwe and Bulawayo24.

"At least 18 schools in Binga, Matabeleland North province, recorded a zero percent pass rate at Ordinary Level 2022 examinations, with teachers unions yesterday saying such results showed education inequality in the country and accused government of failing to provide marginalised communities with free education" said the report.

This is not happening in Binga alone, this is a nationwide problem. In 2019 the MP for Chiredzi South in Masvingo Province called a meeting with all the school heads to discuss the school results. The best performing schools at grade seven, Form two, "O" level and "A" level had a 3% pass rate!

The quality of Zimbabwe's education started to go down soon after the country's independence in 1980 because the incoming Zanu PF government was obsessed about quantity and completely ignored the need for quality. Schools were built up and down the country, like sprouting mushroom after the rain, but were not properly resourced in terms of materials and staff.

As Zimbabwe's economic meltdown got worse and worse due to the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption this Mnangagwa government, like the Mugabe government before it, has cut government funding to education and health to the borne. Many qualified teachers and health care workers have left the country in droves search of better conditions of service and a living wage.

Zimbabwe's public education and health care services have all but completely collapsed. If the best performing schools have 3% pass rate with the majority registering 0%, what more evidence do we need to finally admit our education service has collapsed.

So how is it possible that this failed Zanu PF government still continues to enjoy political support in rural areas? Indeed, the party considers rural areas its political strong hold!

The rural people are simple folk but they are not that stupid not to have noticed that the quality of basic education and health care service were going down and now have totally collapsed. Of course, they noticed that and they would not have never continued to vote for Zanu PF regardless. They have been voting for the regime all these years because they have been coerced to do so.

Zanu PF will win the majority of the votes in the 2023 elections in Binga, as with many other rural areas, regardless of 18 schools having 0% pass rate!  Not because the Zanu PF government is popular but as proof of the regime's vote rigging mastery.

In an a recent audio President Mnangagwa is heard boasting of how the rural voters will be frog matched to vote for Zanu PF. The village head will be in front, the voters will follow and the party chair man will bring up the rear. The party will know how everyone voted. "Only death has no track record, voters have!" he warned.

A 3 to 0% pass rate means a whole generation of these rural people is damned and so too is the nation because no country can survive much less thrive when so many of its people are denied a future and hope. These people will be a burden to society for no fault of their own.

The need for Zimbabwe to implement the democratic reforms and break Zanu PF's electoral struggle hold on the nation is more urgent now than ever. Zimbabwe cannot afford another rigged election and five more years of 0% pass rates at school!

Source - zsdemocrats.blogspot.com
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.