Government has told schools not to turn away learners under the Better Education Assistance Module as unpaid arrears stretching back as far as two years continue to disrupt support for vulnerable children.

That is the contradiction at the centre of the issue. Ministers are insisting that no child should be excluded from school because of unpaid BEAM support, yet schools are still being asked to carry the cost of state delays while trying to fund books, infrastructure and basic learning conditions.

The Better Education Assistance Module, commonly known as BEAM, is meant to support underprivileged learners by covering school costs. When payments stall, the damage goes beyond attendance. It affects whether schools can sustain the quality of education they are expected to provide, especially in rural areas with weaker finances.

Schools are being asked to carry debts the state has not cleared
The issue surfaced in the National Assembly after Citizens Coalition for Change legislator Gladys Hlatswayo pressed government over delayed BEAM payments and their effect on access to quality education.

Education Minister Torerai Moyo said schools had been instructed not to exclude learners under the programme, even where payments remain outstanding.

“The students who are under the BEAM facility must never, ever be disadvantaged. We have our circulars; we state that no child must be turned away from school regardless of the fact that he or she has paid or not.” Torerai Moyo, Minister of Primary and Secondary Education.

Moyo also acknowledged that some schools are still owed money dating back about two years.

That admission matters more than the reassurance. It means schools are not dealing with a short administrative delay. They are carrying unresolved state obligations from earlier school cycles while being told to keep absorbing the pressure.

The real dispute is not access alone but the quality of education

Hlatswayo pushed back on the idea that keeping children in class, by itself, solves the problem.

She argued that schools still need funds to buy books, maintain infrastructure and provide the basic conditions required for meaningful learning. That is the part government rhetoric often skips. A child may not be formally excluded, but quality education still erodes when schools are starved of the money meant to support vulnerable learners.

This is the structural failure in plain view: government is defending access while underfunding the conditions that make access worthwhile.

Finance ministry blames a bureaucratic loop
Deputy Finance Minister Kudakwashe Mnangagwa said BEAM is administered through the Ministry of Public Service and Social Welfare and funded by the Finance Ministry.

He told Parliament that a “bureacratic loop” had previously been identified in the payment chain and said he had believed the problem had already been resolved.

“We have previously explained to the House that there is a bureaucratic loop in this process. I was under the impression that this loop had been resolved and that BEAM payments are up to date.” Kudakwashe Mnangagwa, Deputy Finance Minister.

That explanation raises its own problem. If government believed payments were current but schools are still owed two years of arrears, then oversight over one of the country’s main learner-support programmes is either weak, fragmented or both.

 A monitoring committee exists, but the arrears remain

Mnangagwa said the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education had set up a committee co-chaired by him, the deputy education minister and representatives from Public Service to track outstanding payments and issues involving the three ministries.

That sounds like an attempt at coordination. But coordination is not the same as payment.

The unresolved fact is that schools are still waiting, vulnerable learners remain dependent on delayed support, and ministers are still explaining a system that was supposed to have been fixed already.

The real question is how long schools can keep carrying BEAM arrears
Government’s instruction that no child should be turned away may be morally clear, but it does not remove the financial burden from schools already operating under strain.

Until the arrears are cleared and the payment chain actually works, BEAM remains a promise that schools are being forced to subsidise on the state’s behalf.