“Close to 700 000 pupils at primary and secondary education levels will get assistance from BEAM this year,” said the Deputy Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Lazarus Dokora. The whole US$20 million has been released for payment of examination and tuitions fees. A total of US$30 million had been budgeted for the payment of fees and examinations for the whole year with the government and a group of international donors set up to contribute US$15 million each. “Most of the money was contributed by the Education Transition Fund (ETF) with a small amount coming from the government,” said Dokora.
The ETF is mainly for the production of textbooks for primary schools over the next five months in Zimbabwe. The government also set aside a special 10 per cent of the fund for disabled children countrywide. The Ministry of Education Sports and Culture promised to continue working with other ministries to strengthen household economic systems and reach out to the neediest Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in the communities. “We will continue to work with relevant ministries in relation to the education of the less privileged. The money is not enough but it will assist in getting us somewhere,” he said. BEAM has assisted a lot of children in the country and has been revived to meet the educational needs of orphans and vulnerable children.