The Chronicle
14 November 2011
The Government will next year introduce a retraining programme for all the teachers in the country so that they keep up with prevailing trends in the profession, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart, said yesterday.
The retraining is part of proposed education sector reforms that would be carried out under phase two of the Education Transition Fund, which may also see a revision of the country’s education curriculum.
Phase one of the programme reduced the pupil to textbook ratio from an almost unworkable 15:1 at moist schools, to 1:1 for all subjects, including some minority languages.
Under phase two, a similar thing would be done for secondary schools, while teachers would begin on Government funded refresher courses.
The teachers would be trained by teams at their schools and the funding would come from the ETF and Treasury.
Speaking at a Professor Welshman Ncube-led MDC rally at Nketa Hall, Minister Coltart said funding for education would also be decentralised from Harare to provincial and district level. He also said the Government was waiting for an opportune time to scrap teacher incentives.
“I have recently come from Finland and Denmark to secure funding for the project. Our teachers are out of touch with modern trends of teaching. Most of them cannot use computer designed programmes to teach pupils. We want them to be abreast with teaching methods, for the benefit of the entire country. We also want to renew the water and sewage infrastructure at schools,†said Minister Coltart.
In an interview after the rally, Minister Coltart said teachers would be taught new teaching techniques that would make learning more exciting for pupils, while adding on to the teachers on-the-job skills training.
He said the country’s education curriculum was last revised in 1986 and in some cases disadvantaged learners.
“We are working on a comprehensive programme to update it. We should move with the times as most of our children cannot use computers,†said Minister Coltart.
He said his ministry was moving to decentralise the disbursement of education funds from Harare.
“We have been trying to send education funds through Harare and it is our experience that money gets caught up in Harare. Now we will distribute the money through per capita grants. This means every child will be allocated money from the Government and each school will be able to get the money at provincial or district level. The more pupils a school has, the more money it will get,†said Minster Coltart.
He said he was sorry that parents were still paying teacher incentives.
“I want to end them, bat at a responsible time. If we abolish them now, to please people, our teachers may turn into criminals. Our mission is to restore dignity to the teaching profession,†said Minister Coltart.
The minister said he was pleased that there were fewer conflicts between teachers’ unions and the Government as there were hardly any strikes or stayaways this year.
He said he was happy that for the first time, grade seven pupils sat for a Tonga examination.
Meanwhile, speaking at the same rally, Professor Welshman Ncube hit out at the MDC-T saying his party would never form a coalition with Morgan Tsvangirai’s party.
“This party does not exist for purposes of forming a coalition with the MDC-T or supporting the party.
“We exist to compete and present our credentials as a capable party with leaders who are up to the task of leading this country. I repeat, Tsvangirai is not our ally, just as Zanu-PF is also our competitor. Newspapers should stop writing fiction that we are here to support Tsvangirai,†said Prof Ncube.
He said Mr Tsvangirai was a hypocrite who went around saying President Mugabe’s Zanu-PF is a violent party, when his party is engaged in violent activities during a heated fight for posts in the run-up to their national congress in April.
“Even the party members are two-faced. They ask us to vote for Tsvangirai but when his back is turned, they point at him and start saying akulalutho lapha,†he said.