Veiled intent or advancing children’s right to education? The legality of payments for extra lessons in Zimbabwe’s education system

Abstract

Extra lessons in Zimbabwe were initially designed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to assist learners with lagging aspects of their formal school learning areas. However, in the past few years, extra lessons have taken a new dimension, including the intent to reinforce a learner’s knowledge and ability to understand lessons taught. Although payment for extra lessons in the formal education setting was declared illegal by the government, the practice continues to be a challenge in Zimbabwe as payments are still demanded for extra lessons conducted in and outside the school premises. The situation worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in some teachers taking advantage of the prolonged schools closure and conducting extra lessons in their homes wherein parents and guardians had to pay a certain amount for their children to undertake these extra lessons. Extra lessons have become a mixture of entrepreneurship and exploitation, with many parents failing to afford and some children missing out.