Chronicle
Editorial
23 January 2010
The country’s education system has produced some of the best minds that are leaders in their own right in various capacities around the globe. Many countries, especially those in southern Africa and the Anglo-Saxon world, poached a good number of skilled Zimbabweans as workers left the country in droves as a result of economic challenges that were worsened by sanctions imposed on the country by Western countries. This even affected our education system since the best brains in the sector left for greener pastures abroad while some simply left the profession and settled for the informal trade.
The inclusive government is faced with the challenge of restoring our education system to its post-independence levels, albeit with limited funding.
Elsewhere in this addition we carry a story in which a US dollars 50 million education transition fund has been launched by the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture in conjunction with the United Nations Children’s Fund to improve the pupil to textbook ratio in our schools and restore basic education for all Zimbabweans.
We applaud the move by the Government that should be supported by all patriots and stakeholders that are concerned about the welfare of our children. We believe education lays the ground to the future of our children and that with the right schooling, children are better able to withstand the challenges later in life.
The situation obtaining in many rural schools especially, and most schools generally, is pathetic since many children share a single textbook with some schools having just a few copies for the teachers. Actually, there are schools where pupils have never seen what their school textbooks look like since the schools have never had any.
It is in this light that we would like to applaud the government and its partners on the target of 9 million textbooks for the 5000 primary schools that would improve the pupil to textbook ratio to between 1:1 and 3:1.
According to the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, the fund, which is managed by UNICEF, has raised US $ 30 million since its launch last year. “We have a target of US $ 50 million that we are trying to raise. UNICEF, acting on instructions from the fund, is inviting tenders for the printing of 9 million primary school textbooks. It is hoped that the awarding of tenders for the printing of the textbooks will be concluded any time next month and companies will then start producing the books,” said Minister Coltart.
The programme would seek to cover the core subjects while there were also plans to print Braille books for the visually impaired.
We particularly wish to commend the vision of the project since it seeks to start at the foundation primary school level so that we get it right from the start in our socialisation.
While the number of books that would be required for secondary schools is yet to be established, plans are afoot to extend the programme to secondary schools once more funds are raised. The focused approach of the programme is quite commendable and worth replicating in other sectors that have been faced with brain drain over the years. The different sectors need to set goals and rope in partners that can assist them towards the fulfilment of those goals like in the case of education that has shown a commitment to producing the best products by laying a proper foundation stone.