• Great u tube on Ngoni Makusha – Zimbabwe's star athlete http://t.co/7pROtkwl #
• Met William Hague and Prince Andrew last night at Lancaster House reception and discussed need for UK to assist Zim's GPA, flawed as it is #
• Attending #Apple summit for education in London – fascinating educational apps – some schools have a iPad per child – much work to be done #
• India 161 all out today against substantially the same Australian attack that Zimbabwe A did so well against when Aus A toured in winter #
• Warner hits a 100 in 69 balls off against India – of course he too played for Australia A against Zimbabwe A during the winter of 2011 #
• Aus thrash India. But it was Aus A members who played against Zim A who did all damage- Warner 180, Hilf, Sidd & Starc got 18 of 20 wickets! #

NewsDay

12 January 2012

A Bulawayo man yesterday filed a High Court application seeking an order barring Masiyephambili Junior School from stopping his dreadlocked son from attending Grade 0 classes.

Khumbulani Dube who is representing his four-year -old son, Mbalenhle Dube, filed an urgent chamber application yesterday afternoon after the headmaster of the school denied his son access to classes because he was wearing dreadlocks.

Education minister, David Coltart, Masiyephambili Junior School and the school’s headmaster are respondents.

Dube, through Lizwe Jamela of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, argued his family practices Rastafarian religion and keeping long hair was a manifestation of their religious beliefs.

“I raised this issue before school opening with the administration staff and they were reluctant to deal with the matter and advised me that I should rather have a word with 3rd respondent (headmaster) on the opening day.

“I believe my son’s long hair is not indiscipline or disobedience to the school as it is not related to his conduct,” he said.

Dube said he took his son to school on Tuesday and the headmaster advised him in no uncertain terms that his son was not going to be allowed in class if his hair was not cut.

“My son was in fact barred from joining his classmates and I was directed to leave with my son and comply with the said school rule if I still considered my son a student at the school.

“My religious pleas were not entertained at all and eventually I left the school dejected with my son while his counterparts were in class enjoying their right to education.”

Dube said his matter was an urgent one as his son had already lost two days of the school term and continued to suffer irreparable harm as he was not allowed into the school.

Speech given at the Education World Forum, London

By David Coltart

11 January 2012 

Introduction

Zimbabwe was recognised in the past as having arguably the best education system in Africa. A sound curriculum for black Zimbabweans was developed in the 1950s prior to the destructive Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) period. The post-independence period from 1980 saw rapid expansion. Literacy rates were the highest in Africa. Indeed, in 2012 the UNDP held that they were still the highest, although their figures were based on questionable access and attendance criteria.

In the last two decades, however, funding in real terms has dropped precipitously. This situation has been compounded by political trauma in the last decade, including hyper-inflation and the targeting of teachers who were perceived as being political. The result was that 20,000 teachers left the profession in 2007 and 2008.

February 2009

When I came to office in February 2009 the education system was in crisis. Eight thousand schools were closed and 90,000 teachers were on strike. Public exams had not been marked, textbook to pupil ratios had fallen to an average of 1:15, physical infrastructure was collapsing. The destruction of the Zimbabwe Dollar meant there was no money available. Donors were sceptical about the political process. There were no functioning Education Management and Information Systems (EMIS), no internet and no accurate data since 2006.

Obviously very few countries get into this state, and to that extent this example may not be very relevant save for being a reminder of the necessity not to get a country into this state. But what have we done since February 2009?

Stabilisation

As a Government we agreed that all civil servants would start on the same salary of US$ 100 per month. That included me as Minister! We then had to enter into dialogue with the Trade Unions to bring an end to endemic strikes. We offered an amnesty to teachers who had left the profession during the difficult period, allowing them to return to work. We started an extensive consultation process, involving unions, parents, children and NGOs regarding what was needed to stabilise and resuscitate the sector. In July 2010 I launched a short-term strategic plan, which has now been developed into a five year plan.

The key elements of the five year plan are as follows.

Firstly, to restore the professional status of teachers. We have in the last 3 years increased teachers’ salaries from US$100 to $300 at entry level. In March 2009 I launched a new National Educational Advisory board to advise on matters pertaining to the improvement of primary and secondary education in Zimbabwe, and we have plans to establish a Professional Teacher Council to administer the welfare of the teachers and improve their professional conduct. We have asked for the introduction of a rural allowance to encourage good teachers to work in the rural areas.

The wider benefits of our efforts to restore the professional status of teachers can already be seen reflected in the 2011 school results. These indicate a stabilisation of the sector owing to minimal disruption from strikes.

Secondly, to improve conditions in the classroom. There has been a major problem of lack of materials, especially textbooks. The Education Transition Fund was set up in September 2009 as a means of channelling donor money to address these issues. The ETF is chaired by me but managed by UNICEF, with membership restricted to donor countries. The results have been encouraging; in 2011 15 million textbooks were delivered to primary schools restoring the pupil to textbook ratio to 1:1 in core subjects. Secondary schools are set to receive 8 million textbooks this year, which will also result in a pupil to textbook ratio of 1:1 in core subjects.

The impact of the primary textbook programme can already be seen in the 2011 Grade 7 results. These had plummeted in recent years but have now been stabilised and in 2011 started to improve.

Thirdly, we need to improve the quality of education. This will involve an extensive curriculum review, something that has not taken place in Zimbabwe since 1986. An extensive and exhaustive process is underway to bring the curriculum up to date and we are looking at introducing Civic Education, where students will learn about issues of democracy and human rights. Furthermore, we need to move from a heavily academic curriculum to one which includes more vocational education. We are working on a plan to use podcast technology, which I hope will enable us to leap frog years of a dearth of computers in schools.

Investments in the Examination Authority are also necessary in order to improve the quality of education. We have plans to introduce a new computer marking system that will make our examination system financially viable

Fourthly, governance issues need to be addressed. With the breakdown of systems lawlessness has crept in. New regulations are in the process of being introduced with a focus on the rights of children, incorporating international covenants. We are also seizing the opportunity to grant increased autonomy to parents with a deliberate policy to encourage them to take a more active role.

Finally, we plan to place a greater focus on marginalised children. Zimbabwe has some very good independent and mission schools and we have granted them more autonomy. Our focus is on Government and local council schools but thee is a vast gulf between these two broad sets of schools. I have been concerned that our talented disadvantaged children are not being adequately served by the government education system. To address this, we are in the process of establishing Academies, also known as Centres of Excellence. These will be rehabilitated Government schools which will be bound to reserve 40 per cent of their intake for talented disadvantaged children, who will receive full scholarships. In this manner I hope to reduce the gulf between government and private schools.

Overall results

The overall results can already be seen. The schools are now open and student to textbook ratios are now acceptable. But we still face enormous problems. The Ministry is operating on a shoestring budget. Our budget last year was US$ 14.8 million, which works out at less than US$5 per child per annum. Were it not for the passion of children, parents and teachers the system would have collapsed.

We remain in crisis. The ETF has worked but is woefully inadequate. The main responsibility for this of course lies with the Zimbabwe Government. We need to move from rhetoric to action and make education a priority. However, we also need the international community to assist. Under the direction of Carol Bellamy, the Global Partnership for Education has been granted US$2 billion to support the education systems of 46 countries worldwide. If one compares this to the billions spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, or on the retention of nuclear weapons, however, one sees a misguided order of priorities in the international community.

The best way to promote world peace is through educating the world’s poor; through giving them hope. There is a need for a radical review of the developed world’s funding priorities if we are to make significant improvements to the world’s education systems.

The Herald

10 January 2012

Over the past 30 years the relationship between parents and the schools their children attend has undergone a long overdue revolution.

Parents are no longer, and must be no longer, passive payers of fees and limit their involvement to dropping their children off and picking them up.

Soon after independence, with the incredible growth of the school system following the needed political decision that all children should be given the opportunity to attend school for at least 11 years, it soon became obvious that even with the accompanying huge surge in the budget, the education ministry did not have nearly enough money.

So steps were taken to involve parents. School development associations were formed and State schools were permitted to charge levies over and above the fees. As the then minister said, the ministry would provide teachers and chalk and parents would pay for the rest.

The little left over in the budget after salaries would largely be allocated to rural schools where money was very scarce.

Steps were taken to ensure that parents had to be involved. One revolution was the legal right of parents to see the SDA accounts and the requirement that they had to approve, at a special meeting, any changes in levy with the ministry having the final word.

For two decades the system worked fairly well. The ministry rarely intervened so long as a substantial majority of parents agreed to the levies, or to the labour levies that many rural schools introduced to build new classrooms.

The inflation years caused concern, but after some ups and downs and legal battles it became clear that so long as parents agreed to levies they could raise them.

With the switch to hard currencies many SDAs went a step further and used levy money to supplement teachers’ salaries to ensure that qualified people would remain in the profession and that they would be able to concentrate on teaching, rather than their own businesses.

Unfortunately this extra set of responsibilities for parents has caused some problems.

In some schools powerful committees of the SDAs, and even some heads, have forgotten that all parents have to be involved in the budgeting and the setting of levies, and just make decisions without going through the process required.

At some of these schools, and at others, the parents have overdone it, taking their financial responsibilities to mean that they can have a say in how the school is run.

The present minister, Sen David Coltart, has now fired a warning shot. He has made it clear that the laid-down procedures for setting fees and levies must be followed. Parents decide, after going through the costs of what facilities they want their children to have, just what the fee or levy is.

Minister Coltart, before becoming minister, was heavily involved in private education and has always argued that what parents agree to pay they should be allowed to pay.

But he clearly wants to see that agreement, and in State schools his officials obviously have to ensure that a substantial majority in a particular zone can find the money.

The other requirement is that parents do not run schools. Heads run them. This is right. Education is not something that amateurs should be making decisions about; it needs professionals.

Again the minister knows this from his earlier days; in the non-government systems boards of governors have a lot of say over money, but so far as education and administration go have to limit themselves to hiring a competent head, or for that matter firing one that does not measure up.

Even at the minister’s level, the Education Act makes it clear that the Permanent Secretary makes the professional decisions, such as what the core curriculum consists of and, through his professional assistants, who shall run which school.

The minister has more say over money and general policy, but not on what happens in a classroom. So we see the need for ensuring that the system and the laws that make it work are kept in front of all.

This is presumably why the minister is planning new regulations, not to change the system but to make sure that it works properly.

We need to keep parents involved, otherwise the system will collapse.

But parents also need to understand that while they have quite a lot to say over the finances raised through levies and how they are spent, the professionals cannot be interfered with when it comes to who teaches and what is taught.

Obviously parents, or even an SDA, who are unhappy about how a school is run can complain, to the governors at a non-government school and the regional director at a government school, and equally obviously a responsible authority will investigate and take action if the complaints are justified.

But there is a clear division of responsibility and parents have to accept this, just as school authorities have to accept that parents are now entitled to be involved in the budget process and a majority agree to what is proposed before fees and levies are set.

VOA

By Gibbs Dube

10 January 2012

Members of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe in Harare launched a sit-down labor action Tuesday on the first day of the new school term to enforce their demand for pay increases of more than 100 percent for the lowest paid instructors.

A VOA correspondent who visited primary and secondary schools in the capital reported that most teachers were not conducting lessons on the first day of 2012’s first term.

But some headmasters at schools in Bulawayo, in Matabeleland North, and Gweru, in Midlands province, said teachers were conducting lessons as usual.

The Progressive Teachers Union is demanding a salary of US$540 a month for junior teachers who are now receiving just US$253 monthly.

PTUZ Vice President Nokuthala Hlabangana said her union called the strike in spite of a meeting that has been set for Wednesday between government negotiators and representatives of civil servants.

Hlabangana said her members will continue on strike until salaries rise. “The government has no choice at all because we need better salaries,” she said.

Sifiso Ndlovu, chief executive of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association, said his members have ignored the PTUZ call for a sit-down strike.

Neither Education Minister David Coltart nor Labor Minister Lucia Matibenga could be reached immediately for comment.

Elsewhere in Harare, more than 700 students of the Cold Comfort Primary School in the suburb of Warren Park were barred from entering the school by its putative new owners, leading to a protest by pupils and parents at the Ministry of Education.

Ownership of the school, which has a historical association with the liberation movement that led to the creation of Zimbabwe in 1980, has been contested since the Herentals private educational group announced its purchase of the school in 2011.

A group called Release Power was the main contestant to Herentals’ title.

The Zimbabwean

10 January 2012

The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe joins the Tonga speaking people in celebrating the official recognition of their mother tongue- Tonga through its public testing at Grade 7 level by the Ministry of Education, Sports, Arts and Culture in 2011. At the same time, CCJPZ recognises the efforts made by its sister organisation, Silveira House, for initiating advocacy and lobby processes culminating to this success.

Language is a very important tool for communication and the preservation of own culture. The history of any people is passed on through its language and defines the identity, origin and aspirations of its speakers. To deny or look down upon any people’s language is a denial of their right to identity and existence. As said by one traditional leader ‘a people without a language are like a tree without roots’. The Tonga language, like any other Zimbabwe local languages deserves such recognition as a way of fostering national unity, cohesion and respect for diversity.

The Government of National Unity (GNU) through the Minister of Education, Sports. Arts and Culture, David Coltart should be commended for taking a bold decision to officially recognise the Tonga language through its testing in the 2011 Grade 7 examinations. CCJPZ acknowledge the efforts of Silveira House and other organisations that have contributed to the translation and development of the curriculum and literature for Tonga language. We look forward to official recognition and speedy translation of curricular and learning materials for other minority languages like Shangani, Venda, Nambya, Kalanga and Chewa and their consequent learning and testing even up to degree level.

However, what remains is the recognition of these languages in the new constitution. If the new constitution does not guarantee teaching and testing of these languages in the areas they are spoken, this achievement will go nowhere. CCJPZ recommends explicit clauses in the new constitution that mandates our educational institutions to teach and examine these languages.

NewZimbabwe.com

9 January 2012

The main teachers unions appeared divided over a call to go on strike when schools re-open on Tuesday while education minister, David Coltart warned any job action could cripple the country’s education sector.

Junior teachers currently earn about $253 a month and unions are demanding parity with the country’s poverty line which is estimated at currently pegged at $540 a month for a family of six.

But talks with the government have made little head-way and some of the unions said their members would not report for work on Tuesday.

Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou said his members would not report for work the rival Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) said it would await the outcome of talks scheduled for Wednesday.

“We hope that our colleagues in ZIMTA will realize that the best way forward is industrial action because the language that our government understands is industrial action and that they will be joining us on Wednesday,” Zhou said.

However, ZIMTA President Tendai Chikowore, who also chairs the Apex Council which negotiates with the government on behalf of civil servants, said it would be counterproductive for teachers to go on strike while they are still negotiating with the government.

Meanwhile, education minister David Coltart said there was little his ministry could do to stop the job action since it did not directly employ the teachers.

Teachers are employed by the Public Service Commission.

“I am speaking to the trade unions but not as part of the negotiations team because I do not employ them and do not participate in the tripartite negotiations,” Coltart told a local daily.

Coltart warned that the strike could further damage the country’s education sector which is struggling to recover from the near-collapse experienced in the last decade.

“We have done what we can and everything is on track — exam papers are being marked, dates for opening of schools have been set long ago, secondary school textbooks are being delivered countrywide, but of course all of that will mean little if teachers go on strike,” he said.

Daily News

By Lloyd Mbiba

9 January 2012

Harare - Education minister David Coltart says he cannot stop teachers from joining a looming civil servants’ strike, warning that public schools that open tomorrow face a return to collapse because of government’s failure to pay adequate salaries.

Civil servants, of which close to half are teachers, say they will take “drastic” action if government does not give a firm commitment to raise salaries when the parties meet on Wednesday.

Teachers’ unions have voiced their support for the demand for more pay, leaving government schools to open amid uncertainty.

Reacting to threats of a strike by teachers ahead of schools opening tomorrow, Coltart said he had no power to stop the action since his ministry was not the teachers’ employer.

Teachers, like other civil servants, are employed by the Public Service Commission, which falls under the ministry of Public Service.

The Apex Council, which is the umbrella representation body for civil servants, last week appeared determined to take action if government again refuses to increase salaries.

Tendai Chikowore, leader of the council, said government workers were now fed up with the parent lack of interest in improving their livelihoods. Chikowore is also the president of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association.

The council is agitating for the lowest paid civil servant to receive a salary above the poverty datum line currently pegged at $546.

Coltart, ranked by this paper as one of the best performing ministers for the year 2011, warned the industrial action risked crippling the education sector.

“We have done what we can and everything is on track — exam papers are being marked, dates for opening of schools have been set long ago, secondary school textbooks are being delivered countrywide, but of course all of that will mean little if teachers go on strike. But that is something beyond our control,” he said.

Coltart has managed to turn around the decay in the education sector by implementing effective policies that have seen the sector rising from the ashes.

Zimbabwe’s education sector, once ranked the best in Africa, was in near collapse when Coltart was appointed minister at the formation of the coalition government in February 2009.

A decade-long economic meltdown and political turmoil resulted in most government schools closing down and only opened after the formation of the coalition government.

He introduced teacher’s incentives as a means to generate money to complement the paltry salary which the teachers are getting.

Coltart said he was speaking to the union leaders to try and avert the looming industrial action.

“I am speaking to the trade unions but not as part of the negotiations team because I do not employ them and do not participate in the tripartite negotiations,” he said.

Asked what damage control measure government had put in place if the strike takes place, Coltart said: “It is very difficult to damage control when one does not have teachers – they are critical to a school’s performance.”

The Herald

By Felex Share

9 January 2012

Government has finished working on new education regulations that will ensure compliance with existing procedures in raising fees or levies in schools.

Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart said the regulations would improve the country’s education system.

He said in coming up with the regulations, the ministry was governed by the country’s Education Act.

“The new regulations will be tabled in Cabinet to the committee on legislation when it resumes sitting in a few week’s time.

“We expect them to be enforced once all the necessary procedures are complete and we hope it will be in the shortest possible time,” he said.

Minister Coltart said the new regulations would deal with schools that disrespect Government and court decisions.

“Situations of schools that defy Government directives are rampant and we are tightening the grip on those unruly schools.

“For example, some milk parents by increasing school fees willy-nilly. There are laid down rules by many had a tendency of ignoring those rules,” he said.

Under the Act, a majority of parents at a specially called meeting have to approve any increase in fees or levies and then the minutes of the meeting and list of parents attending has to be sent to the ministry for final approval.

“It is too early to divulge what we will do with such schools but this time anyone caught on the wrong side of the law will regret.”

He said the new regulations would also distinguish between the role of school development committees and school authorities.

There have been many clashes between school heads and SDC members over the control of finances and schools in general.

“This is a more serious problem where some do not know the limits. An SDC should only help in the administering of the school but many tend to overlap and want to take total control of the schools.

“This is unacceptable according to the Education Act as it has contributed to the down fall of the country’s education sector,” he said.

Government, Minister Coltart said, was also working on reviewing the school curriculum so that it suited the country’s social, historical and economical situations.

“It will take long just like the constitution making process but it is our hope that we also move with the technological advancement,” said Minister Coltart.

“Attempts have been made before by due to financial constraints the curriculum review failed to take off.

“But now we have made major economic improvements and we will work hard to improve the country’s education sector.”