By Tendai Makaripe
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s BEAM arrears reached nearly $292.5 million from 2023 through 2025, Parliament heard Wednesday, as lawmakers reported that schools continued sending some beneficiaries home.
Deputy Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Mercy Dinha told the National Assembly that limited funding and Treasury delays had created the growing backlog.
“BEAM has accumulated arrears dating back to 2023,” Dinha said.
“The program supported 1,856,996 learners in 2023, but the government ended that year owing schools about $62.6 million.”
BEAM supported another 1,261,140 learners in 2024, adding about $117.8 million to the debt.
In 2025, the program covered 950,192 beneficiaries and accumulated a further $112.1 million in unpaid tuition, levies and examination fees.
Those unpaid amounts brought the total debt to $292,492,316.46.
Dinha said the Treasury released ZiG84,876,800 this year to partially clear arrears at some mainstream and special schools.
The Treasury also released ZiG10 million to settle part of the examination fees owed to the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council.
Government Chief Whip Pupurai Togarepi challenged ministers over reports that schools were excluding children whose fees the government should pay.
Togarepi said: “Some schools with large numbers of BEAM beneficiaries had sent between 70% and 80% of their learners home.”
He questioned why children had to lose learning time because the government had failed to meet its financial obligations.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Torerayi Moyo acknowledged that some school heads continued to defy government directives.
“Government policy does not allow exclusion of learners from school,” Moyo said.
He said schools violated children’s right to education when they sent them home over unpaid fees.
Moyo warned school heads that education authorities could suspend them for excluding learners and said officials had already suspended some school heads in Nkayi North.
He said he planned to issue another public statement before schools open for the third term to remind authorities that they must keep all learners in class, including those covered by BEAM.
The Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Ministry also told Parliament that 14 schools in Bulawayo had submitted their BEAM claim forms.
However, Treasury delays prevented the ministry from processing the claims.
The schools include Matshayisikhova Primary School, Luveve Primary School, Emakhandeni High School, Luveve High School and Josiah Chinamano High School.
Section 68C of Zimbabwe’s Education Act bars schools from excluding pupils because of unpaid fees.
The government created BEAM to pay tuition, levies and examination fees for children from economically vulnerable households.
However, delayed payments deprive schools of money for textbooks, stationery and daily operations while exposing beneficiaries to stigma, interrupted learning and possible dropout.
Children’s Voices reported in July that Jairos Jiri School for the Blind in Kadoma had not received a BEAM payment since 2022.
The prolonged delay left the institution struggling to meet the educational and welfare needs of children with disabilities.
Dinha said the government intended to clear the outstanding debt before the end of the year, but she did not provide a payment schedule for individual schools.
For thousands of vulnerable children, the contradiction remains: Zimbabwean law protects their place in the classroom, but the government’s failure to finance its own safety net continues to disrupt their education.
