Parents in Zimbabwe can give goats as tuition fees for their children

According to the country's education minister Lazarus Dokora, the government want the payment of tuition fees to be flexible.

In an interview with the pro-government Sunday Mail newspaper, he admonished that schools should not only accept livestock, but also services and skills.

"If there is a builder in the community, he/she must be given that opportunity to work as a form of payment of tuition fees," the paper quoted him as saying.

According to the paper, some schools are already accepting livestock as payments.

Clarifying Dr Dokora's comments, a ministry official said: "Parents of the concerned children can pay the fees using livestock. That is mostly for rural areas, but parents in towns and cities can pay through other means; for instance, doing certain work for the school."

This is coming after Zimbabwe made it legal to use their livestock, such as goats, cows, and sheep, to back bank loans.

Under legislation introduced in parliament, borrowers would be allowed to register "movable" assets, including motor vehicles and machinery, as collateral.

Zimbabwe's cash crisis keeps worsening. This means that people spend more hours queueing at banks to withdraw cash.

Even though the government has attributed this crisis to people taking hard currency out of the country, critics have argued that its due to lack of investment and rising unemployment.