• Interesting afternoon at a school in Mitchell's Plain, Cape Town – much has changed for the better since I was last in Crossroads in 1982 #

• Come on Louis – Africa is behind you to get the Masters #
• Oosthuizen's putt lips out for eagle on the 13th – great shot – Africa rooting for you! Gets birdie and a 2 shot lead. Calmness personified! #
• This Masters is just too tight to call but Oosthuizen is still doing Africa proud – still in the lead but plenty competition! #
• Just great to see the South African flag at the top of the leader board still – come on Louis!! 3 holes to go. #
• Louis Oosthuizen needs to patent his calmness. Astonishing how relaxed he looks. Great ambassador for Southern Africa. Go Louis!! #
• Golf at its very best – two great competitors but still rooting for Louis. This does so much to keep Africa on the map. #
• Louis turns to Bubba and says "great shot" after both have stunning shots to the 18th green – makes us all proud to be Southern African #
• Have South Africans ever won the Masters back to back? If not here's hoping this will be the first. Louis has definite advantage over Bubba #
• Bubba hits a miracle shot – hard to believe that he could get to the green from that position. Game on! #
• Should be Bubba's now but great golf from Louis – made us proud. #

The Zimbabwean

By Fungi Kwaramba

11 April 2012

Perched on bricks under umbrella-shaped savanna trees children at Estridge satellite primary school 15 km from Chinhoyi children try to learn.

When it rains some do not turn up. For most the school is far away from their resettled homes.

Winter normally sees a massive drop in attendances as children, who have only a few ragged clothes, shy away from the biting cold.

Estridge is one of 701 schools that sprouted following President Robert Mugabe’s land “reform” programme begun at the turn of the century.

A thematic committee of Parliamentarians on Millennium Development Goals, which has been studying satellite schools since 2010, said that for the past 10 years, children uprooted from commercial farming communities had “been condemned to such a harsh learning environment and until something miraculous or dramatic happens, a dark cloud is cast over their future.”

Indeed it’s a bleak future that threatens the country’s chances of meeting the MDGs according to Education Minister David Coltart.

“In rural and urban areas the dropout ratio is still very high. Last year we estimated that at least 300 000 children not covered by BEAM (Basic Education Assistance Module) could not attend school because they had no school fees,” said Coltart.

The situation is worse at satellite schools which are not legally recognized.

“The problem is particularly acute in satellite schools because the government did not plan for these schools. They were established in response to the land reform programme,” said Coltart.

“There are no buildings at the schools, there are no teachers in fact there is no infrastructure at all. At present government simply does not have the resources so it will be difficult to meet the MDGs,” he said.

Gift Muti the Secretary General of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe said children in such communities have been condemned to a life of farm labouring “There are no schools at the farms and in the few instances where they are found the situation is so deplorable that most children drop out and join their parents as labourers. Most of the so-called new farmers do not prioritize education but regard children as a source of cheap labour,” said Muti.

The vicious cycle of poverty continues as most of the kids do not have national registration documents as their parents are often of foreign descent. They cannot progress beyond primary school as there are no secondary schools and also most of them do not have birth certificates required to register for examinations,” said Muti.

The committee urged the government to amend the Citizenship Act so as “to address the challenges being faced by people whose ancestors classified as aliens.”

Radio VOP
8 April 2012

Three-times Comrades marathon winner, Stephen Muzhingi won the 2012 Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon Saturday taking home the R250 000 prize money.

The Zimbabwean athlete crossed the line in a time of 3:08.

Henry Moyo from Malawi came second in a time of 3:08.35, while another Zimbabwean Collen Makaza was third after crossing the line in a time of 3:08.45.

In the women’s category Russian Elena Nurgalieva powered home in a time of 3:41.55 ahead of her compatriot Natalia Volgina who came second in a time of3:45.29. Zimbabwe’s Samukeliso Moyo came fifth in a time of 3:49.10.

A record 25 000 runners took part in this year’s Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon, with some 16 000 of those running the half-marathon. Runners from 78different countries entered the race, confirming the international interest inthe Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon.

The race is run for 56km.

The Zimbabwean became the first man since Derek Preiss in 1974 to hold the Comrades and Two Oceans titles at the same time.

An elated Muzhingi said the race is part of his build up to the Comrades Marathon coming up later this year.

“I was going fora time, and I knew that it was a time good enough for victory,” he was quotedas saying.

Muzhingi’s victory was celebrated by Zimbabweans with congratulatory messages pouring in on the social networking site, Twitter.

Zimbabwe’s top swimmer Kirsty Coventry tweeted: “Great to wake up and hear @StephenMuzhingi won the two oceans marathon. Very well done!”

David Coltart, Education, Art and Sports ministers tweeted: “Stephen Muzhingi’s triumph in the Two Oceans today is quite remarkable – running a marathon is completely different to Comrades. Well done!”

• I am delighted by Aung San Suu Kyi's apparent victory in Burma's elections today. Hope for Burma from a brave, principled lady. Makorokoto! #
• My web site has just been revamped. Go to http://t.co/QPOHYUVE – have a look and tell me what you think. #
• Just as law does not always equate to justice, so intelligence does not equal wisdom. Zimbabwe needs justice and its leaders need wisdom. #
• "Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong, for like the grass they will soon wither" Psalm 37 : 1 – 2 #
• He who is pregnant with evil, he who digs a hole..falls into the pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on himself" Psalm 7 : 14-16 #
• Astonishing that over 36 hours after the President of Malawi suffered a heart attack still no official word re him; nation has right to know #
• Malawian Minister Kaliati must say whether the President alive or not. If he is alive what is his condition? Respect the constitution! #
• "With my family all around me
  I've all the riches I can hold
  I'm a beggar
  Sitting on a beach of gold"
  Mike & Mechanics – Happy Easter all #
• So it looks as if Africa may have another woman President in Joyce Banda of Malawi. Can only be good for Africa to have more! #
• Hearty congratulations to Stephen Muzhingi for winning the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town today. Does this mean he is ready for Olympics? #
• Stephen Muzhingi's triumph in the Two Oceans today is quite remarkable – running a marathon is completely different to Comrades. Well done!! #
• Bravo Glasgow Celtic for winning the Scottish SPL title. #
• http://t.co/p37nJxc3 Muzhingi is the first to hold both the Comrades and Two Oceans since 1974 – Makorokoto – doing Zimbabwe proud. #
• President Mutharika's death is undoubtedly a blow to Zanu PF hardliners who were relying on him to back them in SADC re an early election #
• Full of fear women bowed as men said "Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive? He is not here, he has been raised" Luke 24/5 #

The Freeman

By John Blundell

April 2012  

Volume: 62,  Issue: 3 

Alice Chitumba Pangwai is a lovely African lady, just entering her sixth decade, with a big smile that belies her steely determination. Her mission: to deliver private high-quality education for those in the lowest economic bracket in Zimbabwe, some of the very poorest families in the world.

As one of several children of unemployed field workers back in 1975, her education was affected by constant fear of economic disruption and political rebellion.

“I had to work for my school fees at the age of 12 as well as those of my two siblings, who were too young to work on the school farm,” Alice tells me. “Such mission schools, now long vanished, at least back then allowed us to work our way through.”

The load was huge, and she says it is still with her today. She burns with a dream that no poor child should go through the roller-coaster education she suffered. She also has an ironclad belief that in education the private sector clearly outperforms the government sector.

The result is both counterintuitive and astonishing—a private school for mostly poor boys and girls located in a deeply rural part of a basket-case country.

As James Tooley’s ground-breaking and award-winning book, The Beautiful Tree (Cato Institute), informs us, millions of poor children are getting a superior private education thanks to educational entrepreneurs such as Alice.

“Low-cost private education in developing countries in Africa and Asia is playing a hugely important role,” Tooley told me. “Research has shown that in urban areas such private schools are serving a majority of the poor and outperforming the government schools—at a fraction of the cost. Schools run by people such as Alice are part of a good news story coming out of Africa that deserves our attention and support.”

He named Alice as one of his most inspiring educational entrepreneurs for the poor because “she is a woman entrepreneur who is battling against the odds in extraordinarily adverse circumstances with great tenacity and endurance.”

On my recent visit to Zimbabwe, my driver Harold and I set off east on the “freeway” to visit Alice at her school in Marondera. The road, the major link to Mozambique, has one lane each way and is narrow and badly paved, albeit with tarmac.

We headed east through farm land that had once been hugely productive. Looking right and left the whole way I never once spotted a single fully functioning farm. “The soil is rich and the water is plentiful,” observed Harold, “but the war veterans are just not interested.”

This country has had a long voyage from its conception as Southern Rhodesia, then Rhodesia, through to the modern Zimbabwe. Its potential is astonishing, and given the right free-market incentives and property rights under the rule of law, this nation could rocket.

However, in 2000 President Robert Mugabe began a campaign that has so far driven out some 280,000 whites, many of them farmers. Today their population is reported to be a mere 20,000. Their confiscated farms have been handed over to black veterans of the so-called Zimbabwean National Liberation War, along with assorted cronies, judges, ministers, and girlfriends.

“The war veterans farm enough to subsist with a few small plots by their houses,” Harold told me. “The rest of the land they simply ignore.” It would not be unusual for a veteran to have received a 200-acre farm, work just 5 percent of the land, and let 95 percent go to rot.

“This used to be good for tobacco farming and cattle ranching,” observed Harold, who had driven the road often in earlier, more prosperous times.

We passed hundreds of traders by the side of the road. At least somebody was growing something, I thought. But I was mostly wrong about that. The wild honey, carrot, or lettuce vendors were selling locally produced items, as were the toy makers. But according to Harold, the same didn’t apply to the many women with sacks of potatoes or oranges on display. “They buy from wholesalers—this food is not from here,” he explained.

Zimbabwe is currently ranked last of all countries for which data are available in the Heritage Foundation’s Economic Freedom of the World Index.

After passing through all this on a bone-jarring road amidst nerve-wracking traffic, the journey had left me depressed. We entered Marondera (population 30,000), passed a mass of Kombis (the ubiquitous white minibuses that provide most people’s only alternative to walking), and came to the agricultural show ground where the Early Bird Learning Centre is based.

Twenty years ago Alice, by then 30 and a qualified primary teacher, started her own school with three pupils in a log cabin at the back of her home. Five years later she had 15 students—nine primary and six secondary. She started searching for space to rent and hit on a great idea: The agricultural show ground sat unused and totally empty save for a few days in the middle of September each year. Its several acres of open area and various structures would provide an excellent site for a school. She cut a deal with the owners in 1998 and moved in with 30 pupils.

In the Zimbabwean school year August is normally a holiday month, but Alice saw no reason that it could not be September instead. And so each year in late August every single desk, chair, book, blackboard, computer, and file has to be moved into temporary storage to make way for the agricultural show. Everything is then returned in early October for the school’s reopening.

Most parents in Africa are poor. They struggle to feed, clothe and even house the children for whom they are responsible. They are often not the biological parents in a country where average life expectancy barely hits 40. “Easy access to a decent education is a difficult challenge,” Alice says. Education is often low in their hierarchy of needs. But to Alice it is imperative. “The eradication of poverty will remain a pipe dream without proper education,” she says. In her view a combination of academic rigor and some technical skills is the road to “total freedom, self esteem, and self reliance.”

The school enrollment soared to over 600 pupils in 2005. “But the conversion in April 2009 from the Zimbabwe dollar to the U.S. dollar hit us very hard indeed,” she explains. “People woke up one morning to find they had nothing in the bank.”

Today Alice still rules the roost at the agricultural show ground though with a lower enrollment of 200. But it has not dampened her infectious enthusiasm.

The pupils wear smart blue uniforms, except for the juniors and seniors, who are in red. As we toured the campus we entered half a dozen different classes. The entire room promptly stood. Their discipline and respect for Alice were impressive.

I reduced a class of 13-to-14-year-olds to a fit of giggles when I asked, “How many of you are driven to school and how many take a bus?” It turned out that of the current student body of 200, only five are carpooled in and the remaining 195 walk up to seven miles to school.

Alice is full of stories of alumni who have done well. Tirvanhu’s parents paid his fees in grain from a rural area over 100 kilometers away. He is now a banker, while his brother Blessing prospers as a caterer in a top hotel. Orphan Dunmore is now an accountant.

“Most parents come and help in some way,” Alice says. The most obvious contribution during my visit was from the local tailor, Mr. Diamond, who was busy sewing school uniforms to pay part of his children’s tuition.

So how does the Early Bird Learning Centre work? Alice’s enrollment appears to be 25 percent middle class paying $600 a year and 75 percent poor paying $150 a year. It is a system of cross-subsidization. Tooley commented to me, “In good times it is a for-profit concern. Given the bad times they’ve been through, it’s probably barely breaking even at the moment, but definitely it should be noted as a for-profit concern.” He continued: “In common with many of the low-cost private schools, the school manager, often on the advice of teachers, uses some discretion on what fees to charge. The fees might be set at $10 per month. In a typical school, 75 percent might pay the $10, while the remainder have varying degrees of concession, depending on their perceived circumstances.”

Alice is disparaging about the State sector: “Government teachers are always on strike, sometimes for two terms at a time.” At such times her enrollment soars but then plummets once the strike is over. Understandably this pains her.

She claims that standards are a lot lower in the State schools and classes are huge, with as many as 40, 50, or even 60 being taught together. Her classes contain no more than 20 students at primary level and 35 at secondary. Not one of the classes I saw had more than 25, and some only contained 10 or 12 students. She also abhors the government policy of hot-sitting, which teaches children in multiple daily shifts. This system explains why there had been so many children in different-colored uniforms walking to school as Harold drove me along at around 10:00 or 10:30 that morning—they were second-shift State-school kids on their way to class.

In contrast Alice’s school day begins at 7:30 a.m. (8:00 in winter so that even the children who live a long way from school are not walking in the dark) and finishes at 4:00 p.m.

Alice is achieving impressive results. Her pupils achieve a better pass rate than other local students with good grades. There is no dumbing down here. These are tough exams, which put her graduates at least at U.S. sophomore level. “I’m not handing out fish and making them dependent. I’m giving them all fishing rods,” she proclaims loudly with a big beaming smile.

“It used to be that the boy child had preference and that at the end of Grade 8 (age 13) the girls were married off,” she continues, “but that has changed.”

Early Bird alumni are now to be found in banking, catering, hotels, teaching, and abroad in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Namibia. But many also graduate and “sit at home,” as Alice puts it, or work as house maids for $30 per month because the cost of a university degree is far beyond them.

The ever-restless and ambitious Alice has two new initiatives in hand. She has sold her own home to purchase a 12-acre stand next to the show ground and has started to build her own campus. Her home, she tells me, “was big and beautiful. Now I am living in a durawall temporary shelter with no electricity for the past five years. But that cannot be compared to the land I have for the new campus.”

She continues: “If only I get help to build, then my heart can go to rest. It is one thing to have great ideas but being poor they add up to nothing as they starve to death before your eyes. That is the situation I am in. With all this land strategically positioned in a central business district of a major town but with no money to complete the construction, this eats me up day and night since I live here on the campus.”

It is all on hold following the enormous inflation and ensuing dollarization. Even so, I came away surprisingly hopeful that Alice will succeed and create a great campus.

Her second project is to add a vocational or skills element while maintaining high academic standards. Welding, carpentry, and tailoring are planned. Computers and video are already on offer to a limited degree. An entrepreneurship element is soon to be launched.

I returned to Harare inspired and dusty.

Later, at his request, I met the minister for education, Senator David Coltart, a white member of President Mugabe’s much-vaunted “inclusive” government and a constitutional human-rights lawyer of distinct classical-liberal leaning. He expressed admiration for people such as Alice, though he had yet to meet her, and admitted that many of her sharp criticisms of the State rang true.

He explained how the collapse of the currency and dollarization in 2009 had left the education system with literally no resources. “We started charging for State schools because the education sector has been seriously underfunded by government for two decades,” he explained.

So there sits Alice Chitumba Pangwai in Marondera, Zimbabwe, a rural town in one of the poorest and worst-run countries in the world.

To one side of her there is a vibrant, independent private educational sector. These include boarding schools with names like those of Oxford or Cambridge colleges and whose rugby and cricket matches are reported in the sports pages of Zimbabwean national newspapers. They charge as much as $15,000 a year, and their parents are the well-heeled elite—ambassadors, ministers, and expatriate businessmen.

To her other side is the State sector, which under Coltart’s leadership has been forced to introduce a form of pricing and is acting in a much more consumer-responsive manner. Good teachers are making twice what other teachers make, I was told. A State sector with fees is a very different creature from one where everything is “free” at the point of consumption.

In the middle is Alice, who for two decades has done all she possibly can—even selling her own luxury house and moving to a slab bungalow—to give the very poorest children a top-notch private education.

“I have a photograph of Alice on my desk, which I look at whenever things get difficult,” Tooley told me. “If Alice—and the many educational entrepreneurs such as her—can rise above everything that is stacked against them and serve disadvantaged children, then who am I to complain? She inspires me to keep up the struggle and to help liberate education from the dead hand of the State.”

AfricaNews

By Misheck Rusere

2 April 2012

Zimbabwe’s much touted literacy rate of more than 90% has been disputed as having been outdated since the figures are based on data collected by UNESCO and the government more than a decade ago.

We roughly estimate that the literacy rate for those over 15 is dropping a half percent each year and that will accelerate to 1% each year as those who left school after 2005 reach age 15,” writes Zimbabwe Reads on its website.

The same organization goes on to state that the Zimbabwean education situation is likely to worsen if the current conditions continue to prevail adding that Zimbabwe might not even be the continent’s highest literary country.

“If current conditions continue, Zimbabwe will have a literacy rate of 70% in 2020. At this stage, it seems unlikely that Zimbabwe still has the highest literacy rate in Africa, with the more reliable estimates from Botswana (85%) and Tunisia (87%) probably surpassing it,” it states.

Zimbabwe Reads observes what it refers to as “a very disturbing tendency” of high rate of children dropping out of school since 2005 where it states that about 15% of the country’s children never enter the school system while a further 30% never make it to secondary schools.

According to the organization, the number of patrons in almost all the libraries in the country continue to decrease since the late 80s with the current figures standing at as less as half the 1989 figures.

“In 1989, there were more than 150,000 registered public library users using 76 public libraries. The user numbers for 2011 are certainly less than half of that. The Bulawayo Public Library reported 10,289 patrons for the year preceding July 2011; the National Free Library had 8016 patrons (but only 250 paid the registration fee to borrow).”

The organization has also noted that most libraries in the country carry materials that are published only in English at the neglect of local languages estimating fewer than 50 titles in indigenous languages. Most books with titles in local languages are reported to have been published long ago and have been kept in stock by local bookshops like Mambo Press.

The Zimbabwean government and UNESCO reports that the country has a literacy rate of more than 90% with the current Minister of Education David Coltart intensifying efforts to restore the education sector which had sharply declined as a result of the economic meltdown which characterized the country for a period spanning to more than a decade.

Meanwhile the United Kingdom through its Department of International Development (DFID), recently injected 24 million pounds (around 38 million USD) into the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Zimbabwe, to support the country’s second phase of the Education Transition Fund (ETF II) which is a multi-donor pooled fund set up at the inception of the inclusive government in 2009 by Education, Sports, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart in partnership with UNICEF in a bid to bridge the sector’s funding gap from emergence to recovery.

Daily News

2 April 2012

David Coltart, the smaller MDC faction’s legal secretary says President Robert Mugabe’s insistence on elections this year without reforms is a blunder he will live to regret.

Coltart was speaking at a discussion on “Elections and costs in Zimbabwe this year” last week where he said holding of elections would only be possible after the necessary reforms and GPA.

“The political party that is going to force through this election will most likely alienate itself from very powerful leaders in the region and donors who have invested political capital to make sure some normalcy returns to this country.

“We will be literally slapping the African Union, Sadc and President Zuma who have invested and taken a lot of strain in trying to convince these organisations. The UNDP has sunk in millions of dollars to drive this process,” said Coltart.

He said he did not see any of the MDC formations participating in a sham election and that the only parties that would likely take part would be Zanu PF and some “stooge parties and whoever forces this election will incur frightening political costs.

“There is a cost to Zanu PF because an election is most likely to cause divisions within the party because they have no consensus within that party to the holding of elections this year.

“It will be a huge political cost that could be Zanu PF’s biggest undoing and may result in the creation of two separate political entities. Mugabe cannot afford any more divisions over failure to consult with a view of going ahead with elections,” Coltart said.

He added that another cost will be political stalemate while sanctions will get tightened. The little legitimacy that Zanu PF had in 2008 will be eroded.

MDC spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora agreed with Coltart saying Mugabe wanted a quick exit from this presidency because it was an international embarrassment.

“Mugabe was not elected in 2008 and he knows it. He has met with young democratically elected leaders over the past four years and its humiliating him.”

“But we are saying if Zanu PF is genuine about elections this year, why don’t we just agree on the modalities of a free and fair poll then hold elections tomorrow — open up the airwaves, repeal oppressive legislation and reconstitute the electoral commission,” Mwonzora said.

Zanu PF’s representative at the discussion Goodson Nguni said Zuma or Sadc will not tell his party on what to do.

“Read my lips, you will not see more of Lindiwe Zulu (Zuma’s political advisor) here much more and Zuma will not be telling us what to do with our country anymore.

“The president of Zanu PF and the country’s head of state has categorically stated that he would pull our party out of the GNU because we are tired of working with imperialist stooges and the people of Zimbabwe will be the final arbiters on who they want to rule them. We must afford them that chance this year,” Nguni said.

Coltart said Zimbabwe did not have the money to fund elections this year and Zanu PF would probably have to fork out money to fund the plebiscite.

“We cannot print anymore money, that era is over. Now we have to spend hard cash and I can speak with a degree of certainty that our capital account is in the red.

“The country may have to forgo social delivery services like education which is already compromised to fund elections,” Coltart said.

The Chronicle 

2 April 2012

Virginity testing in schools is contrary to the Government policy and heads that do that will be subjected to disciplinary procedure, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart said yesterday.

Responding to reports of virginity testing at Tsetse Primary School in West Acre, Minister Coltart said schools had no right to unilaterally sanction such tests.

The minister’s remarks come at a time when villagers and school officials are already at each other’s throats over the matter.

“We certainly do not condone virginity testing in schools as that is contrary to Government policy. Any teacher who does that would be subjected to disciplinary procedure.

“Headmasters do not have a right to make decisions of that nature. Matters of health about the child should be handled with the full consent of the parents,” said Minister Coltart in a telephone interview.

“In matters like these, no matter how well intentioned the school heads might be, they should not do it on their own. It is fundamentally wrong to do so.

“If there are any allegations of rape, the head should work closely with parents to decide on the issue. Parents have a right also to approach our district, provincial and national offices, even myself if they have problems over these issues.” Minister Coltart said he was going to liaise with Bulawayo provincial education director Mr Dan Moyo to produce a report of what transpired at the school.

Mr Moyo on Sunday said he was not aware of the issue.

Contacted for comment Childline Bulawayo officer Mrs Mlala also condemned virginity testing at the school and distanced her organisation from it.

“Those people did their exercise alone and as Childline we were not involved. We were not part of the programme. Those are some of the things that we condemn and we do not know how our name is linked to that. Thank you,” said Mrs Mlala before dropping the phone.

Allegations are that sometime at the end of February, Tsetse Primary officials invited some medical practitioners from Nyamandlovu to examine all Grade Seven pupils at the school.

According to the school’s development committee chairman Mr Mandson Tshuma, the tests were conducted after discovering that there were many reports of child physical and sexual abuse in the community.

Although the school authorities feel there is nothing wrong with the exercise, which was meant to expose perpetrators of child abuse, some villagers feel the act was meant to embarrass their children.

The parents alleged that their children were stripped naked in front of their male counterparts while male nurses examined their private parts.

They also said they were not consulted over the issue and described the move as a form of abuse.
Tsetse Primary is situated at Kllspring Farm in West Acre, about 27km from Bulawayo along Bulawayo-Plumtree Road.

The school was opened in 2005 and has an enrolment of 245 pupils and seven teachers including the head.