Limits and opportunities of marketeering tertiary education in post-colonial Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper intended to assess the impact of marketeering tertiary education in Zimbabwe. The paper revealed that marketeering of tertiary education in Zimbabwe has drastically impacted on access to higher education and training. Poor and vulnerable students have found it difficult to access tertiary education due to escalating commercialized fees. Literature indicates that, even in developed countries like UK, marketeering tertiary education has led to decreased enrolments, diminishing prospects and reduced quality. In Zimbabwe, many of the students in tertiary institutions today are those who can afford to pay for their fees in one way or another even if their entry qualifications were not good enough. The poor and vulnerable who have excellent entry passes are either denied the opportunity or they are accepted and later drop out before completing their programmes because they cannot afford to pay. Although there are prospects that marketeering of education can increase accountability and efficiency hence quality, it does infringe on the rights of the poor and vulnerable who cannot afford the commercialized fees. In Zimbabwe, many people are indeed poor and unemployed and therefore cannot afford the fees. Marketeering of tertiary education has also impacted on funding of research and scholarship as tertiary institutions look for cost cutting measures so that they remain ‘profitable’. This paper then concludes that, therefore, marketeering of tertiary education has more limitations than opportunities in Zimbabwe. It has negative implications for quality and more so for access to tertiary education. It is also negatively correlated with future socioeconomic development and progress. On these bases, the paper recommends well established social safety nets, retention of the revolving fund for student grants, establishment of collaborative bursary grants and improved funding for research and scholarship in Zimbabwe.