Zimbabwe's education is a "national disaster" with some 94 percent of rural schools now shut because teachers can no longer afford to work, the U.N. children's agency says.
UNICEF called on the country's new government to take drastic action to get children back in class as opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday under a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe.
Less than a decade ago Zimbabwe had the best education system in sub-Saharan Africa with nearly every child going to school, but attendance has fallen to just 20 percent and is likely to drop further, according to aid workers.
"The education situation is a national disaster. It is imperative that the unity government focuses on this," said UNICEF's representative in Zimbabwe, Roeland Monasch.
Aid workers warned that depriving millions of children of their education not only jeopardised their own prospects but those of the country, which is in economic meltdown and stuggling with galloping inflation, a major food crisis and massive cholera epidemic.
"A generation is at risk of growing up without any education in Zimbabwe, and that will have catastrophic consequences for the country's recovery," Save the Children's Rachel Pounds said.
Aid agencies say one of the main reasons for the school closures is that teachers simply cannot afford to turn up. A teacher's monthly salary is only enough to buy a few loaves of bread, according to Save the Children. And raging inflation mean it's decreasing every day.
Teachers earn so little that they are forced to spend their time scraping together enough to live on by any other means they can.
UNICEF released its figures on school closures following a survey which revealed 66 of 70 schools visited were abandoned. Only one school was fully operational and only a third of pupils there were in class.
"Children in rural areas already live on the margins," Monasch said. "Many are orphaned, a huge number depend on food aid, they struggle on numerous fronts. Now these children are being denied the only basic right that can better their prospects. It is unacceptable."
In many cases hunger is forcing parents to keep their children out of school to help earn money or scavenge for food. Around half Zimbabwe's 12 million population now needs food aid.
UNICEF said school term only resumed this year in some urban areas for the few who could afford to subsidise teachers' salaries and pay exorbitant U.S. dollar fees.
Meanwhile, Save the Children has warned that those schools still open could become deadly breeding grounds for cholera because of their lack of clean water and sanitation.
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