African Brains Conference
Speech given by David Coltart
6 October 2012
[Link to video of speech:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA21S5okwM8]
Senator David Coltart — Minister of Education, Sport, Arts & Culture, Zimbabwe speaking on Education for Employment, Developing Skills for Vocation at the Innovation Africa Summit – 5th-7th October 2012 at the Westin Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa. Supported by the Government of South Africa and co-hosted by AfricanBrains and the University of the Western Cape.
“Zimbabwe has certainly in the region been recognised as one of the education power houses for some time. Our students are, for example, sought after by South African universities and other universities, and our teachers are found in many of our neighbouring states because of their qualities being recognised. However, in the context of a rapidly changing socioeconomic environment in Zimbabwe, internationally, and of course in the region, the need to reform our education, to prepare learners for the challenges of the current times, and the uncertain future, requires that we change our education system to identify and nurture diverse skills. All people have god given talents but they are always very different and diverse and these need to be, as I said, identified and nurtured. So as good as Zimbabwe’s education system has been in the past, one of the critiques of our system has been, it that it has been far too academically orientated, and that has resulted in the past couple of decades in tens of thousands of Zimbabwean children being given a very good academic education which however has lead them unemployed. We recognise that vocationalisation is a critically important change that needs to be made or rather enhanced in Zimbabwe’s education system.
I am going to try and keep my talk as short as possible; I have got a paper, those of you who want to go through the paper it will be made available to you.
In brief, I want to look at the rationale for vocationalising the Zimbabwean curriculum, our current status of Tec-Voc education in Zimbabwe,  the challenges that we face, and strategies for strengthening the teaching and learning of education for employment in schools.
As I mentioned just now one of the key concerns about our education system has been this bias for academic and the resultant failure of our education system to prepare children adequately for Zimbabwe’s economy. This was recognised in 1999. The government instituted a Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training (CIET). One of the key recommendations of that Nziramasanga commission, as it was called, was that we needed in particular a secondary school curriculum with a strong vocational component to create employment. Since 1999 we recognise that we need this new direction within our education system. The rationale for providing technical and vocational education in the Zimbabwe school system is as follows. Eight provide a curriculum with content responsive to business requirements and learner needs, to produce students who can competently come up with technological designs to solve problems, to provide a wide range of Tec-Voc subjects from which students could choose, to link those Tec-Voc Education courses to relevant Science and Engineering courses in tertiary institutions, to link learners with economic activities around their school environment. Zimbabwe in the last decade as we all know has unfortunately been through a decade of turmoil and as result many of the recommendations contained in the Nziramasanga commission in 1999 have not been implemented.
The current state of our Tec-Voc education in Zimbabwe reflects the position pre-1999, which although as I said has a strong academic bias, did have elements of vocational education. Having said that though, one of the key advances in the past ten years is in the promotion of ECD (Early Child Development) and that has focused on initial orientation towards Tec-Voc subjects including practices in Arts and Craft, Music, Computers, and Physical Education.
Our primary school curriculum consists of 13 subjects. Fifty percent of these are practical. They include environmental Science, Music, Art and Craft, Physical Education, Home Economics and Computer Studies.
At junior level, the curriculum is broad based and there is no specialisation. Students are expected to study at least two Tec-Voc Subjects, one business/Commercial subject and at least five compulsory academic subjects. A fairly wide range of Tec-Voc subjects are on offer and these include, among others: Agriculture, Art, Building Studies, Commerce, Computer Studies, Fashion and Fabrics, Food and Nutrition, Metalwork, Music, Woodwork.
 At middle secondary, which is forms 3 and 4 (‘O’ Level), students are expected are expected to study at least two Tex-Voc subjects, one Business/Commercial subjects, in addition to academic subjects. A fairly wide range of Tec-Voc subjects are on offer, and examined at the end of ‘O’Level, these include among others, agriculture, Building Studies, Fashion and Fabrics, Food and nutrition, Home Management, Metalwork, Technical Graphics, Woodwork, Business Studies, Commerce, , Computer Studies, Economics, and Music. The vocational subjects which are offered as single subject courses are examined by the Higher Education Examinations Council (HEXCO) leading to, what is called, a  National Foundation Certificate (NFC) qualification. The subjects on offer fall under the following categories: Applied Arts, Automotive Engineering, Building Construction and Allied Trades, Computer Studies, Electrical Engineering, Hotel Catering and Tourism, Mechanical Engineering, Science and Technology, and Performing Arts.
We do also have a variety of subjects offered at advanced level including drama, Food Science, and the like.
Our examination board, the Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council (ZimSEC) does offer practical subjects which are examinable at both primary and secondary level. What about the challenges facing the implementation of the vocational education in Zimbabwe? I think that our primary challenge now is the lack of adequate resources both material and financial. Regrettably this is not something which simply inflicts Zimbabwe. It is a subject that I spoke on at the World Education Forum in London in January this year. Internationally and domestically, the world is simply not applying sufficient resources to education. Whilst, fellow Minister, I am very impressed to hear that Botswana is allocating 27% of its budget to education, I believe that as lordable as that is and it is certainly above what we are contributing to education, it is insufficient. If we consider the example of countries such as South Korea, Singapore, and Finland, one will see that those countries have had a sustained investment in education over many decades. It is also very interesting to note that those countries have relatively low budgets for defence spending. Sadly in Zimbabwe, over many decades, although we have focused on education and education consistently has received the top amount of spending in our budget, defence has always been a very close second, and let me stress that that is an international problem. Until we change our funding priorities we will be faced in Zimbabwe and I suspect elsewhere with a dearth of the resources we need to adequately develop the teaching of vocational education. As we know in many of our schools throughout the continent they lack the resources, lack the equipment that we need to ensure that an adequate vocational education is provided to children. Tied into that of course is the challenge we face regarding the production of teachers who can teach vocational education, because in Zimbabwe our tradition has been academically orientated, we have very few teachers who have the necessary skills to teach vocational subjects. That has been compounded in the Zimbabwean context by very high staff turnover because our teachers are marketable both within and outside Zimbabwe. So bearing in mind these challenges what are our strategies to strengthen our TEC VOC education? They are as follows: Â Firstly we intend to implement a two-pathway education structure, which is skills based, and establish district TVE (Tec-Voc Education) model Centres and we intend in future to develop those centres and provide the necessary vocational education equipment necessary to schools. A critically important strategy is of course staff development which entails the transformation of our teacher training colleges to achieve more of a balance between academic and vocational subjects. We need to develop strategies for schools. Another critical strategy is of course curriculum development and review. The Zimbabwean curriculum was last comprehensively reviewed in 1986. And we have now this year embarked on a new comprehensive review and reform of our curriculum, funded by the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa. We have a major workshop scheduled for December this year in Zimbabwe. We recognise that this needs to have Broad stakeholder representation from all sectors of our society including agriculture, mining, commerce, law, all the professions, so we can take into account the needs of our society, not just our current needs, but of course our projective needs over the next fifteen to twenty years. We are drawing on expertise from other countries. Â I have had extensive discussions with the Finish government, for example, which is widely recognised as having one of the best vocational education system in the world and I am delighted that the Fins are assisting us in our curriculum reform exercise. Â There are key areas that we need to look at, that are deficiency areas in our current education. I do not have time to go into them in detail, but these include ICT, not just the teaching of ICT as a standing alone subject, but its application in the teaching of all subjects, the Environment, The promotion of subjects such as conservation agriculture, which I believe has the ability to completely transform not just Zimbabwe but the whole of Africa. Of course, we increasingly need to look at sport, arts and culture as business, because they can generate enormous wealth for any country and provide a career for many children. Ladies and gentlemen in Zimbabwe we recognise that technological and vocational education needs to become a vital mode of education delivery from primary through to tertiary institutions. Our intention is to come up with an education system that mitigates poverty through the enhancement of employment creation, a well designed Tec-Voc education will indeed be education for employment. Nonetheless, because of the high cost involved in its implementation, it needs our government to make education as a whole an absolute budgetary priority, not only in words but in deeds. That is going to require some very difficult political decisions to be taken. In closing, I think it is important that we all have a regional and continental vision. I increasingly talk to my own children not so much about Zimbabwe but about SADC as a region. We need a common plan because our future will be so much more vigorous and exciting if we harness our diversity. And to that extent, functions like this are not only important for our countries but they are important so that we develop at least a regional vision for vocational education. Because of that we are very grateful for African Brains for organising conferences like this and we hope that they will be just the start of many in the future.
Thank you.