A Review of the Literature on Civil Society Funding for Education: Models for Zimbabwe

Humanitarian aid, development assistance and government budget allocations to education continues to dwindle resulting in an increase of the number of children out of school especially for low resourced countries. (GMR, 2015). Due to this, Zimbabwean education has become expensive and thus inaccessible to children in low income communities and rural areas. In 2012, more than 500, 000 students were recorded to be out of school in Zimbabwe. This paper, a comparative literature review, sought to identify challenges in current education funding, document various indigenous alternative models of funding and attempt to develop a Zimbabwean education financing framework from lessons drawn from literature. It examined how different philanthropic practices and civil society participation in low resourced countries can contribute to improving education programs. Three themes, active civil society, functional governments and integration of civil society and government approaches, emerged as the pillars for creating a substantial financing plan for education. Recommendations for further study articulated next steps in establishing a sustainable financing framework. These include investigating what was, what is, and what should be the relationship between stakeholders and education financing to develop an in-depth understanding of current status quo and how it can be improved