Students in Zimbabwe use breakfast to make beer.

This may be the first time I've seen a reference to beer in Zimbabwe since the early 1990s, when the BBC aired a report on a hop-growing experiment there.

Surely these students should be rewarded for grasping the basics of  science?

Cereal banned from Zimbabwe schools after pupils use it to brew beer; Sorghum will be confiscated from three boarding schools due to pupils fermenting a ‘potent alcoholic mixture’, by David Smith (The Guardian)

The country’s Chronicle newspaper said at least three schools in the south of the country had warned parents that oats and cereal made of sorghum would be confiscated when term began on Tuesday.

“Pupils reportedly mix the cereals with brown sugar and yeast and leave the mixture to ferment in the sun, creating a potent alcoholic mixture which the pupils drink right under the noses of school authorities,” noted the paper.

This passage strikes me as curious.

Michael Dube, a chemist, told the Chronicle that the illicit brew could be harmful. “The danger of doing this is that there is no method to control the alcohol content,” he said. “Their beer might have high alcohol levels, which may be a threat to their health.”

Maybe the kids hid their stills somewhere.