To date, little or no progress has been made by Rhodesia's transitional government in removing racial discrimination. As far as the education system is concerned, in fact, spokesmen for the regime and for the "internal settlement" have implied that they envisage few changes of fundamental significance.
The white Joint Minister of Education Mr. Rowan Cronje announced in the House of Assembly on 21 June that it had been decided to create a unified administrative structure for the school system, to date organised on a racial basis, with separate divisions for African, white, Coloured and Asian education. However, Mr. Cronje emphasised that this move was only in respect of overall administration and in no way reflected the future system, structure or racial composition of schools. (BBC 23.6.78; Debates 21.6.78)
Mr. Cronje's co-Minister, Mr. Gibson Magaromombe (a member of ZUPO) has also stressed that there will be no changes in the school system merely for the sake of change, and that existing "high standards" must be maintained. (SM 16.4.78; ZT 20.4.78; BBC 3.5.78)
Under the present system, the regime spends very much more on the education of a white child as on a black. The total amount allocated to African education lags far behind that for European education (including Asian and Coloured children as well as white) relative to the total populations served. The estimates of expenditure (revised) for the 1977-8 financial year are as follows:-
(Parliamentary Debates 7.10.77; these figures exclude expenditure on technical education and the University of Rhodesia)
The Minister of Education told the House of Assembly in October 1977 that spending on African primary schools was R$37 per capita, compared to R$264 in the European primary sector. The comparable figures for secondary schools were R$212 per capita (African) and R$410 per capita (European). (Debates 7.10.77 cols 800-1).
Provision for African education, moreover, has been lagging further and further behind the overall need since the Rhodesian Front came to power. In 1966, for example, the regime announced a target of providing some form of secondary education for 50% of all primary school leavers. In 1976, however, only 19.9% of all Grade 7 African primary school leavers obtained places in secondary schools. Four years previously, in 1972, the percentage had been 26.5%. (RH 8.9.77, quoting figures presented to the Fourth Rhodesia Science Congress in Bulawayo by the Division of African Education).
In 1976, 72% of all African 7 year olds were entering primary school; in 1967 it had been 84.4% (RH 8.9.77, ibid.) More than half of all African children admitted to primary school in Grade 1 subsequently drop out before reaching Grade 7. (Report of the Secretary for African Education, 1976).
The regime itself has warned that to correct the cumulative effects of systematic racial discrimination is, for financial and economic reasons, totally out of the question. The Secretary for Education Mr. A.J. Smith claimed in a letter to the Rhodesia Herald in February 1978 that a total of R$5,861 million would be required over the period to 1991, to pay for a system of compulsory primary education for all races and to enable every child to have four years of secondary education. This he said, represented an expenditure of R$450 million per annum. Yet the total vote allocated to all government ministries and departments for the 1977-8 financial year was only R$672 million. (RH 2.2.78)
