18 March 2011
By Gilbert Munetsi
THE education ministry is finding it difficult to sustain its operations, as it has to rely on US$63 million out  US$469 million it got from the treasury. The revelations were made by Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, Senator David Coltart, while responding to a question raised by Mberengwa East legislator, Mr. Makhosini Hlongwane (Zanu-PF), on whether the Government has a policy in place that is meant to protect the various vulnerable children in rural areas to ensure that they have an access to education.
“Honourable members of the house may think that the budget allocated to my ministry is a lot of money, but when you analyse, you will see that it is grossly insufficient. US$406 million of the US$469 million has been allocated to salaries, leaving a balance of US$63 million to run the Education Ministry including Sport, Arts and Culture.
“We have over three million children that we have to educate but we have something like US$2 per child per month to educate children, which is awfully inadequate,†he said.
Senator Coltart alluded to the fact that there were an increased number of parents and guardians who could no longer afford to pay fees, and the problem was further aggravated by the ever increasing number of orphans compared to the past two decades.
“So what we have are two forces of insufficient money coming in from the Government to the education sector on the one hand, and parents who themselves cannot fund education on the other.â€
The Minister proposed, among a number of solutions, lessening government priority in such areas as travel and science, and channeling the money saved into high-priority sectors that include health and education.
Turning to the point of incentivizing of teachers, Sen. Coltart said it was a sad development that the profession had lost its glamour and until teachers could be adequately remunerated, incentives would stay.
However, he agreed “there has been a lot of lawlessness around the issue as many feel it has been applied in an indiscriminate way and unfair manner in many respects.
“We need to tighten up legislation regarding how incentives are raised and how they are paid to ensure that this is done fairly and in accordance with the law,†he said.