The Herald
22 February 2012
Government and donors yesterday signed a US$6,5 million agreement under the Education Transition Fund Phase 11 to train teachers and improve governance systems at schools.
The money will train about 8 000 school headmasters in management and key personnel at the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture at head office, provincial and district levels.
Over 100 000 teachers are expected to be trained in modern subject based skills, with focus on upgrading at least 10 000 unqualified teachers.
The facility, to be managed by the United Nations Children Fund working with the Ministry of Education is for the next three years.
ETF is a Government-initiated programme being co-ordinated by Unicef and the donor community launched three years ago with the aim of mobilising resources for the education sector.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Harare yesterday, Education Minister David Coltart said the facility will introduce second chance programmes to school dropouts.
“This is a welcome development especially after successfully going through the first phase,” he said.
“This second phase will help us in completing our five-year national education strategic plan which I am going to present to Cabinet next week.
“We are also aiming at the development of a national schools grant initiative, delivering critical investment at school level, to greatly reduce financial barriers to education.”
Minister Coltart challenged Government to allocate more resources to the education sector.
He said the education sector remained “in crisis” due to under-funding.