The Beautiful Tree

by James Tooley

  He pulls his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wipes the copious beads of sweat off his forehead. I feel no sweat on mine, although it is pretty warm down there. “The trouble with you British is that you are still colonizing us, you still think you are our masters. . . .”

  Oddly, I choose to interject and challenge him on this point:

  “But that was 25 years ago; of course, we don’t think that now!”

  He doesn’t like being challenged. He looks away from me.

  He motions down to my notebook: “So why are you writing this shit!”

  It’s not a question that requires an answer: “Why are you writing this shit about us?”

  It was true; my notebook was pretty gruesome evidence. What had I written? Just normal stuff. About how I’d been in Zimbabwe staying with an old friend from my teaching days of 20 odd years ago, Peter, a white Zimbabwean, and his Shona wife, Caroline. About how they’d said there were definitely no private schools for the poor in Zimbabwe; that perhaps it was true this time, as, oh dear, “Zimbabwe is unique in having Mugabe as leader: uniquely bad, uniquely evil.” Then about my normal detective work, trying a different tack, asking Caroline, who was a lecturer in a government teacher-training college, what morale was like in the teaching profession, in government schools? And recording what she had told me: “Morale is at rock bottom. Teachers are not paid enough. Most of my students are just there to get the diploma so that they can get their secure government job that they’ve been promised. ‘If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,’ as the old saying goes, and monkeys are lazy.” Then recording my observation that, if government teachers are really so bad, this means that there are likely to be low-cost private schools, if Zimbabwe is anything like any other country I’ve visited.

  Then there were details of my further detective work, following many dead ends, nearly believing Peter and Caroline and everyone else I spoke to in Harare, but eventually finding what I was looking for in Dzivaresekwa. This was one of the “black townships” built by the Rhodesian government some miles outside of Harare on the main Bulawayo road to house the African workers, seemingly as far from the white suburbs as was possible. It was still one of the poorest settlements, home to many more people than it was built for. We’d gone there after we’d happened to give a lift to Leonard, a worker at a small game reserve just outside Harare near the airport, who was to become my guide as I traveled to Marondera. We’d seen wonderful birds: iridescent kingfishers, African pied wagtails, jacandas, and fork-tailed swallows, I recorded. But most exciting to me, I obsessively wrote in my notebook, was hearing Leonard say that he had a friend who was teaching in a low-cost private school in the township.

  About Dzivaresekwa my notes were more positive, had my interrogator read them. I’d favorably compared Dzivaresekwa with places like Kibera and Makoko, saying it all seemed positively rich by comparison—neatly planned, charming if tiny, brick bungalows with small gardens, not poor in the way that the slums of Kenya and Nigeria were poor. It was true that many people were also living in sheds in these small gardens, but these tin shacks were no different from where everyone lived in the slums of other African countries. I’d been positively surprised by what I’d seen of living conditions in Zimbabwe. But I wished I hadn’t recorded some of the graffiti I’d seen on the walls, though, proclaiming, “Mugabe must go.”

  From Dzivaresekwa there were copious notes about the low-cost private schools I’d found—but my writing was so bad, he couldn’t have understood any of it, could he? Like Fount of Joy School, renting the eponymous church property, but having nothing else to do with the church. I recorded the low fees and why the owner Edwin, a very friendly, articulate, erudite, and soft-spoken man in his late 30s, told me he had opened the school—which wouldn’t make very favorable reading to a government official, let alone my interrogator. I’d recorded that many migrants from the rural areas were not allowed in the government schools, as zoning had been introduced. If you weren’t an official resident of the township, you couldn’t go to the government school. “We take students from wherever they come, we don’t discriminate,” I’d recorded Edwin saying. “Unlike in the government schools,” I’d observed. And Edwin reporting that his school “upholds good Christian values, good orientation as far as morality and religion is concerned. In the government schools, they have . . . divergent values, and parents prefer what we offer.” I’d also recorded Edwin’s views on a private primary school he knew of nearby, where children sat under trees rather than in classrooms, that was threatened with immediate closure: “It all comes out of a quest for education. Sitting under a tree is not a criminal activity.”

  Another low-cost private school I’d taken notes on was Daybreak College, a secondary school that had just opened nearby. The owner, 25-year-old Watson, had been a teacher at another low-cost private school but had decided to go it alone. His father had recently died, and with the “small money” left to the family, Watson had extended his home to create a brick building for six classrooms. The family lived in the original two rooms as you entered the school. I recorded why he too had opened the school—because there was an acute shortage of secondary schools in and around the township, so he wanted to cater to this demand. Because the government schools took only those who scored highest in the state exams, those less clever had nowhere to go. Watson himself had originally wanted to go to university but couldn’t afford to; with his father’s passing away, “Automatically I became the breadwinner.” I recorded that his fees were lower than the government schools’ and that he now had 72 students but could—and would soon—accommodate 300 in two shifts. I recorded that Watson seemed to have thought a lot about marketing, even down to wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the school name. And I recorded, word for word, how Watson had told me: “Our own market research shows that the reasons why parents prefer our college is the teacher-pupil ratio; in government schools, it is 60 to 1, in ours it is 20 to 1, so in a government school pupils have much more divided attention. Sometimes classes in government schools reach 200, so teachers are discouraged that they can make a difference. Teachers too rarely turn up, they absent themselves from work all the time. But in my school, once you absent yourself from work, you have to explain yourself, and if your explanation is not satisfactory, then you’ll be out.” In the notebook too, I had a copy of Watson’s carefully devised code of conduct for his staff, copies of which were handed out to all new staff members, and which hung on the office wall. And I had recorded Watson telling me that government schools had a real problem with staff behavior. (I’d recalled similar stories when I’d been a teacher in Zimbabwe: reports of teachers having sexual affairs with students. And when the girls had become pregnant, as they often did, they were expelled while the teacher remained in post.) This is item number one on Watson’s code of conduct: “1. No member(s) of staff is allowed to fall in love/have an indecent affair with a student both in and out of the school. Any member of staff caught in a love nest with a student will be automatically dismissed and handed over to the police.” It is followed by strict instructions about punctuality (“Every member of staff must report for work by 7:00 a.m.”), absenteeism (“No member of staff shall absent him/herself without a genuine reason. In case of absenteeism due to illness, a medical proof must be produced. Failure to produce medical proof/give notice is an offence which carries a fine.”), and other important matters. I had written in my notebook how Watson seemed to be dealing very positively with “the very real problems that are present in government schools.” I’d also recorded that, because my visit coincided with the penultimate day of term, the school was having a drama festival, with plays created by the students themselves. I’d written how “the students are great actors, full of life, exuberant, joyful.” This was no cram school.

  And many other details too, of the many other low-cost private schools I’d found. And how one parent had told us about Bright Dawn School in Marondera, where her family lived, and my journey with Leonard t
o visit its proprietor Joy—who sits beside me now, shooting me a glance that seems to say it will be all right, while the Zanu-PF regional head of security continues his tirade.

  “What shit are you writing here? You British, you are still colonial racists.”

  I’ve told him already that I came to Zimbabwe as a young man, laid it on a bit that I’d given up years of life to work for his people. I had told him, truthfully, that I loved Zimbabwe more than any other country I visited, because it had been my “first love,” the place where I’d spent my formative years. I didn’t know what more to tell him. But I say it all again, my voice uncomfortably pleading now. He growls back: “Look, how do I know that you are a friend of Zimbabwe? So you came here 20 years ago as a teacher, but then so many of your compatriots, they come here and pretend they care for us, and will do this, and do that, do all for us, but then you leave, go back to your own country and write so much evil about us; you’re all like this, we don’t want your interest. You British imperialists, you all think you still run Zimbabwe, well you don’t, we are sovereign and independent now, and you’re here doing illegal things.”

  Then he turns to Joy and Tichaona, again they go back and forth, his glowering at me then ignoring me, as they all converse in Shona. How is it all going to end?

  But then it does end. He gets a phone call. He listens. And he then says, “Go.”

  The three of us stand up. He refuses my handshake and Shona farewells. But I leave with the others! We pile into my waiting taxi, drive out of the compound to find Leonard anxiously waiting for us. “I was really worried for you,” he says. And the funny thing is, before that interview, I would not have written anything bad about Zimbabwe—as my friend Peter had remarked, I was feeling only good things about the country that I loved so much, convinced that journalists had exaggerated the problems for their own self-aggrandizement, to make their own adventures sound more glorious. Poverty and corruption in Zimbabwe, it seemed to me, were nothing compared with the other African countries I visited. And I had been traveling unharmed and untouched, at ease, into the townships and rural areas, talking with whomever I liked, seeing whatever I wanted to see. The Zanu-PF regional chief of security had put a bit of a damper on all that.

  We drive off, now laughing together, my relief palpable. Now I’m sweating! I tell them that of course they don’t have to speak to me now, that I don’t want to put them in any more danger. No, no, they insist. Equally I insist too, I’ll drop them off and leave them in peace. But their insistence is greater. “My dear,” Joy says, “we all need a good cup of tea.” Yes, I feel very much in need of a cup of tea. So we drive off, significantly though not to her school but to her sister’s place some miles out of town.

  We laugh together now; the shared experience of being cooped up in the interrogation cellar has, of course, brought us closer. I tell them what I’ve been seeing around the world on my journey. And as they tell me of what they’ve achieved, and what they plan, I realize that I’m meeting two wonderfully dynamic entrepreneurs, who were creating something of immense value here in Zimbabwe. Joy’s school had grown from 15 students in 1998 to around 300 now; it is the only indigenous preschool to high school in the whole country, she told me. Joy had also started a second school deep in the rural areas, in Weya, near Headlands. Here, in addition to academic subjects, children took other courses, such as poultry raising, welding, pig farming, and dressmaking, and they also ran a shop—technical subjects that were also used to raise funds for the school and to train entrepreneurs. She had also been asked to open a third school in Macheke and to extend her chain to Mutare, Odzi, and Nyazura—all in the Eastern Highlands where I’d lived so many years before—where the local communities have promised her land, inspired by what they have seen her achieve in Marondera. And she wanted to extend her Marondera operations to a university. “My dear,” she said, ‘I want to have a ‘one-stop shop for education.”’ And Tichaona, her son, taking seriously the running of the financial side of the business, was currently enrolled in an MBA program with the Zimbabwe Open University, from where he already had a diploma in financial management. We share stories, and I feel inspired by all they have achieved and want to be involved in their future.

  As we part, I ask them the obvious question that somehow I’d forgotten to ask in the euphoria of being released, “Why did the security chief let me go?” Joy says perhaps they believed that I was a friend of Zimbabwe; and the regional Zanu-PF chairman has his daughter in her school. Of course, he was the chairman of her parent-teacher association, I recalled, he would have had a child in her school. “So he doesn’t send his daughter to a government school?” I ask. Joy laughs: “Our school is better. They all know that.” And then adds: “They weren’t going to harm you, not with me there. They were just trying to frighten you.” With Joy beside me, I could be safe.

  We part, and Leonard and I hitch a ride back into Harare; six of us crammed into a small, very slow private car. Just outside of Marondera, our car is stopped at the police roadblock, only ours, all the others in the traffic queue are allowed through. My heart sinks; has Zanu-PF radioed ahead to have me arrested? Without Joy next to me, am I no longer safe? But nothing untoward happens; the driver shows his papers, pays his dues, and we are off, back to Harare.

  That was the only time I ever really felt threatened while doing my research. But it wasn’t the only time I ruffled feathers. When I presented the results of my endeavors to academics and development experts, I felt that if they could have detained me in some dank cellar, they would have been happy to do so. Some accused me of imperialism, racism, and colonialism, just as the Zanu-PF interrogator had done. And although I never again felt that horrible tingling fear at the base of my spine, there were some uncomfortable times ahead.

  My colleague at Newcastle Professor Sugata Mitra—whose work in India has shown how poor children can learn through the Internet without the assistance of teachers—once told me that if ever he felt apprehensive before giving an important lecture, he would look at a photograph of children his work was helping, and that would inspire him to get on with his talk and ignore his nerves and any potentially hostile audience. I have a photograph of me with Joy, and with Reshma too, a Muslim woman whose private school serves poor children in Hyderabad, which I use to the same effect. If Joy and Reshma can endure all that they must go through, overcome all the odds to help the poor benefit from a decent education, then I can get on with telling people what I’ve found.

  Not long after I flew home from Zimbabwe, I presented some of my findings at an important education and development conference in Oxford. I presented the results to many academic conferences; this one was typical. I outlined my findings about private schools serving the majority of schoolchildren in poor areas of Africa and India. China too had interesting lessons to tell. I described how, after testing many thousands of children, and observing a few thousand schools, these private schools seemed superior to government schools with regard to inputs and pupil achievement. And they were doing it all for a fraction of the cost. And that free primary education might not be as beneficial as many believed, because it seemed to have the effect of crowding out existing private schools that were better serving the poor. At least in Kenya. . . .

  As I finished my PowerPoint presentation and the chair invited questions, one professor, metaphorically flinging down my notebook onto the table in front of me, dismissed what I’d said, “Tooley is plowing a lonely furrow, long may it remain that way.” Another stood up to condemn my approach: “Tooley’s work is dangerous, in the wrong hands it could lead to the demise of state education.” “You’ve painted a glowing picture of markets in education,” said another, “but have you never heard of market failure?” Sighing deeply, another said: “It doesn’t matter what your evidence shows. Statistics, statistics, statistics, who cares about your statistics? Private education can never be pro-poor.” Development experts are all pro-poor. I, by celebrating poor families’ decision to use priv
ate education, was not: “The poor must have state education because they mustn’t pay fees.” A young woman near the front was equally as dismissive: “You obviously know nothing about human rights. Free and compulsory education is enshrined in the Universal Declaration!” An elderly Indian professor, more kindly than the others, nevertheless had disagreed with all I’d said: “You’re trying to pull the ladder up behind you,” he smiled, “the only way your country developed was through free government schools. Why are you trying to deny it to the rest of us?”

  They were all united in dismissing my findings. Why was I ignoring the many good reasons that we all know why private education cannot be part of any solution to “education for all”? Why was I ignoring the many good reasons why markets are inappropriate for education—that the short route to accountability I explored in the last chapter had to be abandoned in favor of the political long road? Why was I being so perverse as to ignore the years of accumulated wisdom to this effect?

  After I’d given my paper, the conference chair, a professor at one of England’s top education departments, took me aside. He was trying to be helpful: “You’re silly, very silly, saying all of that. You’ll never get another job. Be sensible, old chap.”

  Five Good Reasons?

  What are these good reasons? Each of the objections given above summarizes one of the major reasons the development experts have for rejecting private education for the poor as part of any solution—apart from the issue of low quality, which we’ve already looked at. I read of these reasons as I studied on my journey, talked them through with whomever I could, and weighed them against what I was seeing for myself. The more I saw, the less convincing I’d found them.