Independence. and which are designed to cater to a similar clientele, enlarged by those numbers retreating from what is no longer an exclusive government system.' 8. The remaining two schooltype classlfic itions both derive from local government sources, and are new since Independence, th 'low-fee-paying schools' catering to t-he African urban population not served by the insufficient numbers of central government schools, and the district coun:i. schools, serving similarly under-provided, rural African communities. Both local government schooltypes share poor resource bases due to their recent establishment, as well as the rela:iye poverty of the communities from which they obtain their support.

9. All five schoolt)pes delineated in this study receive central government funding for their operation, namely in teachers' salaries, afforded on the basis of the same pupil-teacher ratio throughout, and the same per capita grants across the non-central government schooltypes. The central government schooltypes have all of their major running costs paid for by the central government, unlike the rest which have to make up the difference from parents' pockets or odter sources (e.g., beer hall profits).

# **_I1._** _Dcta and Method_

# _Sample_

10. The target group for this stujy consisted of 1990 Grade 7 pupils, their teachers and the heads of their schools. The school population was stratified into the five schooltypes described above. Three regions were selected from which schools were randormly sampled from randomly selected districts. Criteria for selecting the regions were that a fair representation of Ndebele and Shona children should be included, as weal as a fair representation of both urban and rural schools.

- '1. The districts and the number of schools selected were:

- (a) In Harare Region: Harare District (31 schools). (b) In Mashonaland West Region: Chegutu (7 schools), Kadoma (9 schools), Lomagundi (9 schools), Hurungwe (10 schools), arid Kariba (3 schools).

- (c) In Matabeleland North Region: Bulawayo (i4 schools), Binga (4 schools), Bubi (4 schools), Hwange (5 schools), Lupane (7 schools), Nkayi (7 schools) and Nyamandlovu (8 schools).

12. A stratified random sample proportional to the size of the primary schools and the size of the districts in the chosen regions was drawn. All Grade 7 children and their tcachers at the selected schools were then surveyed, as well as the heads of all the schools. Table I provides a breakdown of the sample by schooltype, classes and pupils.<sup>5</sup>

- 4 It is not necessary to suggest that the motives of this enlarged clientele are racist. **lTe** enlarged numbers are seeking out more exclusive, and in their view, higher-quality schools, at miinimum, on grounds of class, if not for other reasons.

- 5 It would not appear that the numbers of schools sampled within each of the schooltype strata reflect the representation of that schooltype within the total population of schools. Statistics for 1991 show that some 6 % of primary schools in Zimbabwe were government schools, 6% (mission and trust schools, read 'high-feepaying'), 1 % urban council (read 'low-fee-paying'), 73 % district council schools, 5 _%_ rural council schools and 9% other types of schools. (Ross and Postlethwaite 1992, p.4) Government and low-fee-paying schools seem to be oversampled, which would give an urban bias to the sample.

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