The 2015 November “O” Level Zimsec examinations will go down in history with an indelible blithe of having been inaccessible to Belvin Chibi because of his poverty.
As a nation we shall forever carry the memory that in that year we watched as a boy was denied the right to write his examinations because he is too poor to afford school shoes.
According to the teacher who turned him away, the need for candidates to wear shoes of the same colour during the 90 minutes that they are in the same room writing the examinations is more important that the lifetime benefit of writing and passing the examination itself.
It took me long to write on this issue because there is a part of me that kept hoping it was not true.
However, as it turns out it is true. Chibi, an “O” Level pupil registered at Mweyamutsvene Mission School, missed two examination papers because he was denied permission to enter the exam room by a teacher who demanded he should be wearing school shoes.
I am yet to recover from the shock that this can actually happen, that it actually happened.
Headmaster Abel Zebron Rubende’s wife Nyasha, the teacher who turned Belvin away, not only violated his rights as a child citizen of this country, but also as a child and managed in the process to send a clear message that a child must pay for their parents and be kept poor by being denied any opportunity of getting out of the poverty trap.
Child citizen’s rights
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The first violation in this case was of Belvin’s rights as a party to a legal contract.
The way I understand our system to work is that the moment one pays their examination fees and they receive a candidate number from Zimsec, their contract is no longer with the school, but with Zimsec.
The school receives its centre fee and has to provide centre services. The student contract with the schools ends on the last day of lessons and a new contract of candidate and centre takes precedence. It is desirable and would be good if the candidate continues to wear their uniform, but it’s not a legal requirement and should not be a condition for accessing the examination room.
The rules for examinations include silence, timely arrival, when to start and when to stop writing, but do not include mandatory wearing of a school uniform. A candidate who turns up in casual clothing and is orderly and does not disrupt other candidates has unnegotiated right to sit in the examination room. In this case the teacher acted as if Belvin had disciplinary obligations as a student of the school.
Under normal circumstances, this would be ideal and is what obtains with most schools, but where there is a disagreement on what is acceptable and unacceptable attire between the school and the candidate the candidate has to access his rights as a candidate to a national examination.
If Belvin could not afford to conform to the school uniform requirements he was not under obligation to do so and certainly should never have lost his right to writing his examination because of that. His rights as a child citizen were violated in this case and the school has to answer for this violation.
A child’s rights
The second level of violation that Belvin suffered was his right to non-discrimination as a child. Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) provides that no child shall be discriminated against on any basis including poverty.
Barring a child from writing their examinations because they can’t afford shoes designated by the school as uniform is indeed discrimination on the basis of poverty. The same UNCRC provides that where there is doubt or a dispute the best interests of the child must prevail. No matter how angry Rubende felt about Belvin not wearing his full school uniform she must have been guided in her action by what was in his best interest as a child.
Punishment that takes away a child’s access to an “O” Level qualification is not in his best interests. Rubende was, therefore, guided by something else other than the desire to correct when she decided she could arbitrarily stop Belvin from writing an examination that he had taken four years to prepare for.
Nothing about that is in his best interest and nothing about that is corrective, it’s just vindictive and harmful, her husband has offered to support Belvin to sit for the missed papers in June 2016 that is good it’s what is available, Belvin has to take it.
Nothing, however, will compensate for the fact that his “O” Level results will have to be on two certificates instead of one. Some institutions do demand that the results be of one sitting. Nothing will compensate for the fact that he had been psychologically prepared for the November 2015 examinations not the June 2016 one. Nothing will compensate him for the lost time that he could have been doing his lower six studies, which is why what was in his best interest should have prevailed at the material time.
Poverty
Belvin lives in Bocha, a dry poor area that does not produce much food. Most families in Bocha struggle to access food and other basics, like water. When a family manages to keep a child in school for four years it’s an achievement and in my view it’s unacceptable that someone can nullify that sacrifice and bring it to nought simply because the family cannot afford shoes.
By doing what she did Rubende humiliated Belvin in front of his peers and made poverty a punishable crime. Anyone who has experience lack, and most of us have, knows that poverty carries with it unwarranted shame and stigma.
It is, therefore, highly irresponsible for the only adult in the classroom to accentuate a child’s poverty by barring him from writing a public examination.
The message sent to Belvin’s peers is that they should treat with disdain those who are less fortunate than themselves.
Children are not responsible for buying themselves school shoes, their parents or guardians are.
How then does a teacher justify taking away a child’s chance to write a career determining public examination on the basis of what a parent is able to do or not do?
How do we get to a point where we send a child back to a grandmother to demand shoes?
Belvin suffered damaging humiliation for his guardian’s poverty and will live with the psychosocial impact of this experience for the rest of his life. If we all had a choice would any one of us be poor? Child poverty in this country has been aggravated by HIV and Aids-related orphanhood. Zimbabwean poverty is highly ruralised with 76% of rural households falling under the poor bracket.
I would expect a teacher to make it her business to be sensitive to this reality in a community she works.
With the massive job losses that have hit our country, we are certainly going to be seeing more children without proper school uniform and these children should be safe and be treated with dignity in our schools.
We might agree or disagree on the candidate’s obligation to conform to school uniform requirements. That is healthy debate. We however, have to be clear on what we expect from someone who spends the greater part of a child’s formative years with our children.
It is a great act of trust for a parent to release their child into the hands of a teacher for 5 five days of a seven day week.
During that time a teacher must know they are in loco parentis and have a duty not only to teach and discipline, but to guide, protect, nurture and propel a child to overcome adversity (including poverty) and reach full potential. Anyone not committed to doing this should not be anywhere near a classroom.
As a nation we need to revisit the characteristics of our classrooms, the value system taught to our children by the teacher and see if it trains our children to be empathetic, responsible and functional citizens.
The lesson from the Belvin-Rubende experience is that our teachers need to be capacity-built in child protection and psychosocial support. It is the only way our teachers will facilitate psychosocial well-being of their students by making them feel accepted and valued whether they are poor, living with HIV or disability or are slow learners. Condemning what Rubende did is not enough, we have to work towards changing the classroom environment if we are to prevent repeat occurrences of such inhumanity.
lSibusisiwe Marunda is the Zimbabwe country director of the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative
