Sunday News

20 November 2011

The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart has apologised to parents and guardians for compelling them to pay teachers’ incentives.

Addressing a crowd of about 500 at a rally at Nketa Hall in Bulawayo, Senator Coltart said he was “deeply sorry” that parents were being asked to supplement teachers’ salaries due to the Government’s monetary constraints, that have seen it filing to hike salaries to decent levels.

Parents and guardians have since the introduction of the controversial incentives that are prone to abuse been incensed that they are being forced to take the position of employer regardless of the fact that teachers earn little like they do.

“I am sorry that as parents you have to pay incentives. I want to put an end to them but I should do so at a time that is responsible. I cannot do the thing that is popular and abolish incentives only to reverse the gains we have achieved since I became Minister of Education,” said Senator Coltart.

Senator Coltart defended the incentives and said that as much as they erode the spending powers of parents and guardians they were a necessary evil.

He said: “I am determined to restore respect to the teaching fraternity. I don’t want our teachers to do like what happens on roadblocks where we are solicited for bribes. We (Ministry of Education) now have a good relationship with teachers, I have an open door policy and I discuss with them their grievances and other important matters that affect education.

“This year we hardly had any strikes or stay-aways; this is not rocket science but a policy of respecting teachers. I respect teachers and I treat them has human beings with needs like every citizen of Zimbabwe. When I took over, ZIMSEC (Zimbabwe School Examination Council) had developed a habit of delaying the marking and release of the results bug I ended all that. I did not pour in the money that teachers wanted, I just showed them respect.”

Senator Coltart also revealed that he had managed to turn around the education sector by working tirelessly to ensure that students did not share textbooks.

“Eighteen months ago we promised that primary schoolchildren would have a textbook each in all subjects and we delivered on that promise. It was not because we had money but because we set our minds on accomplishing that task. Recently I launched the textbook project for secondary schools. Next, every secondary school student will have textbooks for English, Mathematics, Geography, History, Science and the vernacular language that they do,” he said.

On Wednesday, the senator reiterated his sentiments to Parliament that Government would soon roll out six secondary school textbooks worth over $8 million under his Ministry’s Education Trust Fund.

Senator Coltart said the programme was aimed at ensuring each student has unfettered access to study material and avoid sharing of textbooks.

“The tender was awarded to College Press which will do 42 percent of the textbooks, Longman 34 percent and Zimbabwe Publishing House (ZPH) 24 percent of the textbooks. These will be distributed to a total of 2 345 secondary schools throughout the country and the textbooks are currently in the warehouse and the distribution process will start in a few days, starting with the most remote areas due to the rainy season which might make it difficult to access the places,” said Senator Coltart.

This project comes hard on the heels of the launch of the US$85 million education fund by the Government, the United Nations and other Western donors, which is aimed at improving education in the country’s secondary schools.

The donation will pay for seven million textbooks, and follows a similar project last year in which UNICEF and other agencies donated 13 million to the country’s primary schools.

The programme also will target 200 000 absentee children from the most impoverished and vulnerable communities. On the issue of minority languages, Senator Coltart said he was working on a project to make all minority languages part of the education curriculum.

He said: “Every mother tongue is important as the next thus I want all languages to be examination subjects at Grade 7 and secondary school. We have managed to turn Tonga into an examination subject at primary school and we want to introduce other languages as well. I want the Kalanga language, Venda, Suthu and all other languages to be taught at schools because without vernacular languages we risk losing out identity.”

VOA

By Tatenda Gumbo

22 November 2011

Progressive Teachers Union President Takavafira Zhou said the PTUZ is telling schools and administrators facing violence to stop teaching to focus attention on the need for the government to protect them.

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe says violence against teachers and school administrators has escalated with alleged war veterans and ZANU-PF-aligned politicians attempting to take control of institutions around the country.

The PTUZ said the headmaster of Donsa Dam Primary Cchool in Kwekwe, Midlands province, narrowly escaped injury from a gasoline bomb thrown into his house after alleged war veterans had demanded his resignation.

The veterans were said to have told the headmaster to surrender the keys to the school accusing him of being aligned to the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which has shared power with ZANU-Pf since 2009.

PTUZ officials said the headmaster, awake at the time, bolted through a window and received minor burns. He sought refuge at a nearby secondary school.

In Gutu district, a ZANU-PF Ward 15 Chairman named Mododo was said to have written letters to eight schools instructing headmasters to make teachers attend ZANU-PF rallies.

The Ministry of Education has banned political and military rallies on school grounds, as Minister David Coltart says this undermines teaching and learning.

But the union charged that these recent incidents by politicians and war veterans aligned to ZANU-PF have become a threat to all teachers in the country.

Progressive Teachers Union President Takavafira Zhou said the PTUZ is telling schools and administrators facing violence to stop teaching as a way to focus attention on the need for the government to protect them.

Zhou said teachers must make a stand against violence since police failed to apply the law and the Education Ministry has failed teachers.

NewsDay

By Veneranda Langa

17 November 2011

Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart on Wednesday told Parliament government would soon roll out 6 711 462 secondary school textbooks worth $8 322 505 under its Educational Trust Fund.

Coltart said the programme was aimed at ensuring each student had unfettered access to study material and avoid sharing of textbooks.

“The tender was awarded to College Press which will do 42% of the textbooks, Longman 34% and Zimbabwe Publishing House (ZPH) 24% of the textbooks,” said Coltart.

“These will be distributed to a total of 2 345 secondary schools throughout the country and the textbooks are currently in the warehouse and the distribution process will start in a few days, starting with the most remote areas due to the rainy season which might make it difficult to access the places.”

Recently, primary schools got textbooks published by Longmans, courtesy of Unicef. While MPs from the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture said the textbooks compromised the quality of education, Coltart argued the education system in Zimbabwe had been in dire straits and the books had gone a long way in alleviating the desperate situation.

Chitungwiza North MP Fidelis Mhashu alleged the primary school textbooks by Longmans, particularly Mathematics and Shona (Pindukai) were mediocre or sub-standard.

“These are some of the worst books in the country, but they are already in circulation,” said Mhashu.

Magwegwe MP Felix Magalela Sibanda alleged the committee had been ignored in making decisions on the procurement of textbooks and said this might compromise on quality.

However, Coltart said each textbook had been approved by the Curriculum Development Unit which fell under his ministry.

“Is it a greater mistake to provide children with Longmans textbooks or not have textbooks at all?” queried Coltart.

“The prices by other publishers were so high that one textbook was $5. Due to Longmans textbooks, Grade 7 results have picked up and I think it is directly related to the provision of these textbooks,” he said.

Coltart said Zimbabwe now had a pupil-book ration of 1:1, a remarkable achievement compared to the Sadc region’s ratio of 1:4.

The Zimbabwean

By Paul Ndlovu

15 November 2011

Changing the country’s history curriculum is not going to happen soon as there are many factors involved in the process, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, has said.

The statement comes amid criticism from Mafela Trust, a non-governmental organisation, that the recorded history of Zimbabwe is fragmented and incoherent.

“I have received many complaints that the history curriculum is biased and does not accurately record ZAPU and ZIPRA’S role in the liberation struggle. In the short term it is not easy to change the curriculum as textbooks need to be rewritten, and in the interim students need to pass history examinations to get their O and A levels,” said Coltart.

The call for a review of the curriculum is not new. Efforts have been made to change it since independence, with little effect or success.

“The ministry has committed itself to a comprehensive review of the entire curriculum, including history, and in terms of that process it will be necessary to draw in objective and professional academics to review and recommend changes to the History curriculum,” said Coltart.

The Secretary for Education in Zanu (PF), Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, said the change was long overdue, but the onus was on the writers to make a change.

“The change is long overdue. We should have done it ages ago, but the challenge is that the writers’ haven’t had enough time to sit and write the books with the new information,” said Ndlovu.

Dr Ndlovu agreed with Coltart that change was not going to happen overnight. He urged fellow revolutionaries to put pen to paper with information they have which will assist writers with the real facts of what happened in the past.

Historian and writer, Pathisa Nyathi, said that it was unfortunate that the ETF, which has been assisting primary schools with millions of books, recently launched phase two and did not manage to take into account the distortions.

Zephania Nkomo, the National Coordinator for Mafela Trust, said the exclusion of some of the events that ZPRA took part in was deliberate.

“The chronicles of ZAPU and its military wing ZPRA that have been distorted for selfish purposes will not find lasting space in the world of today,” said Nkomo. “The history school curriculum development is a matter that is overdue.”

The Zimbabwewan

By Paul Ndlovu

15 November 2011

Incentives are causing divisions in the teaching fraternity and could likely lead to the demise of the high quality education standards in the country, an official has said.

Zimbabwe Teachers Association president, who is also chairperson of the civil servants representative body, the Apex council, Tendai Chikowore, said although incentives were key to remunerating teachers, in the long term there was a need to effectively abolish them.

She said it was unfair to the teachers in the rural areas who were not getting these incentives as the parents could not afford them, leaving them to rely on the paltry pay they got from the government.

“There is the issue of the rural teachers who are not getting these incentives because parents in the rural areas cannot afford them, this is highly unfair and is causing divisions among the teachers because the rural teachers are now feeling let down. It is also spilling over to the urban areas were teachers from the western areas are complaining that they are no longer at the same level as teachers in affluent schools,” said Chikowore.

She said the issue had been brought up in a number of their meetings and they had resolved to work closely with the Ministries of Finance and Education, Sports, Arts and Culture to come up with a lasting solution to this whole issue.

“We have held numerous meetings with Minister Tendai Biti, lobbying him to come up with salary levels that will effectively get rid of incentives. We are also lobbying for the introduction of an education levy that will not only see money being channelled to the teachers salaries, but also will see a significant improvement in infrastructure,” she said.

Chikowore said they were lobbying for the reintroduction of the rural allowance that would see more teachers being attracted to teaching in the rural areas.

The issue of incentives has in the past couple of months been a serious bone of contention with the Minister of Education, Sports, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart calling them a necessary ill.

“It’s about management and commitment to institutions and safeguarding the future of the children. What affects the government, affects the parents. Right now the government can’t afford to pay teachers a reasonable salary that is when the parents have to come in and help,” said Senator Coltart.

NewsDay

By Silas Nkala

15 November 2011

Government has said it will soon dispatch a probe team to investigate allegations of corruption and maladministration at Plumtree High School following reports the school had accumulated debts of over $75 000 to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa).

Parents recently clashed with Plumtree High School authorities over suspected mismanagement of funds, leading to the huge debts.

Irate parents last month allegedly confronted the headmaster Prince Mange and School Development Association chairperson Elson Shava after Zinwa cut off water supplies to the school over a $15 000 debt.

Mange and Shava declined to comment over the allegations, saying they were not at liberty to talk to the press. They referred NewsDay to the ministry for all details.

Acting provincial deputy director for secondary schools Francis Changwesha confirmed the ministry received the complaints from concerned parents.

“I confirm there was such a complaint from parents concerning the school. The person who sent the complaint was initially dealing with Minister David Coltart. The issue is being investigated and a team of investigators will be sent to the school,” said Changwesha.

“Water was disconnected for seven months over the debt. We engaged the Minister Coltart who intervened leading to the reconnection of water,” said an irate parent.

“We nearly beat up the SDC chairman over the issue and on October 8 we wanted to beat the headmaster over the crisis,” she said.

Coltart on Friday confirmed receiving the complaints from some parents.

“I have asked the provincial education director for Matabeleland South, Tumisang Thabela, to investigate the matter and am still awaiting her report. I have asked that the matter be dealt with urgently,” said Coltart.

The school has an enrolment of about 350 pupils who pay a levy of $485 and $160 tuition fees each.

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.

supersport.com

By Neil Manthorp

14th November 2011

I first met him when he was still playing first-class cricket and our paths crossed in press boxes and commentary boxes on a regular basis for the next 23 years.

For a long time, like many of his colleagues both on and off the field, I was intimidated by his eccentricities. We naturally fear or avoid what we don’t understand – human instinct. But I didn’t avoid conversation, far from it. I just avoided debate on the basis that I didn’t stand a chance and preferred to defer to his vastly superior knowledge.

Then, almost a decade after we first met, he was travelling around South Africa during Australia’s 1997 tour of South Africa looking more and more dishevelled. Nobody ever saw him at the ‘usual’ hotels and he brushed off my queries about his accommodation with a casual “oh, just with friends.”

We had just moved into a house we really could not afford and furniture was not only second hand but sparse. Still, I invited him to stay and he gladly accepted. He wore tracksuit pants the first evening which must have been at least 20 years old and a sleeveless Somerset sweater that was filthy, and smelly. My wife asked, understandably, when it had last been washed. He looked down at his chest and then up to her before replying, nonplussed: “But, it’s a cricket sweater…?” Evidently they were not intended to be washed. That night she put the entire contents of his duffle bag in the washing machine.

We had a new puppy at the time and we were battling to train it. The only decent piece of furniture we had was a beige sofa. The puppy fell in love with it and, if it wasn’t trying to jump on it, it was chewing the legs off it. He sat down on it and the puppy jumped on him. I removed the dog and asked our guest not to encourage it. This request was infinitely more difficult to comprehend than washing a dirty sweater – and impossible to comply with. So the dog stayed. It was a bit like having two dogs, actually. One was only a little bit better house-trained than the other.

One was a stubborn animal with a sense of mischief which seemed to revel in the attention it got from doing something naughty, and the other was a six-month old Ridgeback puppy.

It used to infuriate me that he would write so many articles about players, analysing their personalities and characters, without even talking to them. Maybe it was the fact that he was so accurate most of the time. I would challenge him about it and he would simply say: “Was I wrong?”

Then he really did get it wrong – horrendously and embarrassingly wrong in my opinion – when he suggested that Herschelle Gibbs should be made captain of the national team. “The maverick is often a leader in disguise,” he said. “Empower the rebel and the rest will fall into line.”

“Have you even spoken to him?” I asked. “Peter, you’re mad!” I said, smiling.

“Ah well, you can’t be right all the time. Never mind. Still, it got people talking, hey?” He didn’t mind one little bit.

I consulted him intensely when Zimbabwe Cricket invited me to return and help with their return to test cricket after an absence of six years. Peter had campaigned with passion against Zimbabwe’s right to play on the international stage claiming that ZC administrators were as corrupt as Mugabe and his ZanuPF cronies. I told him I wanted to go and see for myself – I said it was time I stopped judging from afar (and suggested that he might consider the same.)

He gave me his ‘approval’ and wished me good luck and I completed two short tours with the Zim national team as their media liaison officer. One evening I was surfing the web and was shocked to see an article in which he described me as a turncoat and accused me of having double standards. I was furious. We had a blazing row next time we met and I reminded him that I had sought the blessing of three critical people before accepting the assignment: Andy Flower, Senator David Coltart – and him. We did not speak again for over a year.

Then, on Thursday, he asked whether he could buy me a coffee on Sunday morning, the scheduled last day of the Newlands test. He wanted to “repair bridges.” I agreed – but made him promise to talk and listen with an open mind! He smiled. I’m pretty sure it meant ‘yes.’ But I’ll never know now.

A radio station in New Zealand asked me for an interview about the man I had known for so long. The presenter told me beforehand that NZ law precluded him from using the word ‘suicide’ in his interview. I assumed that meant it was my job to say it. “No, no – you can’t say it either,” he replied. “It’s against our law.”

It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. It would have made Roebuck laugh out loud: “Australia and New Zealand are nanny states, I love them, but Africa is so much wilder and more free,” he told me more than once.

“After questioning by the police,” I heard myself saying, “he left his hotel room via the window, apparently without the assistance or intervention of anybody else.”

Roebuck. No wonder he wrote so brilliantly on the subject of flawed genius.

Zimbabwean Metro

14 November 2011

HARARE — Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was as ripped by serious divisions and suspicions as President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU- PF, Wikileaks cables from 2001 to 2005 show.

Local U.S. diplomats learnt of the chaos, infighting and poor organisational framework of the then opposition party after meeting scores of the MDC’s senior leadership — including then deputy secretary general Gift Chimanikire and other executive committee members such as Trudy Stevenson, David Coltart, Paul Nyathi and Tendai Biti.

Stevenson, now Zimbabwean ambassador to Senegal, was particularly scathing about her colleagues, making it clear to the Americans that she did not trust anyone in her party as she believed that many of her colleagues were ZANU- PF plants.

A fired up Stevenson told US diplomat Earl Irving in February 2001 that she did not trust her fellow members of parliament Tafadzwa Musekiwa, Job Sikhala and the Late Learnmore Jongwe, as well as Youth leader Nelson Chamisa because she thought they were ZANU- PF spies.

She said this group of MDC youths and others, whom she described as gatekeepers, stuck to Tsvangirai like glue and prevented anyone else from getting close to him.

She similarly did not trust Tsvangirai’s special advisor Gandi Mudzingwa either, adding emphatically: “I don’t trust anyone”.

United states embassy officials did say that they had no evidence to substantiate Stevenson’s claims.

“We can say with a fair degree of confidence that her distrust of certain younger members is a result of ZANU- PF’s strategy to sow doubt and discord within the opposition party,” embassy officials said.

Coltart was scathing the party’s Information department, then led by Jongwe, describing it as a disaster.

He had no kind words either for the accounting department, calling it a mess.

• In a cool and dark Copenhagen for Global Partnership for Education meeting – hoping to secure more funding for #Zimbabwe #039;s education sector #
• The Good, the Bad and the Odd http://t.co/L7OPlrn6 #
• Encouraging @KRuddMP video at opening of Global Partnership for Education: Australia making education international development aid priority #
• About to deliver Zimbabwe's pledge at the Global Partnership for Education in Copenhagen – commitment to make Education an absolute priority #
• Spoke at GPE re need to identify talented disadvantaged girls so they are nurtured through secondary school to become inspirational icons #
• Arrived in Helsinki for meetings with Finnish Ministers of Education and Development; Helsinki positively warm (10 degrees); Global warming? #
• Rats – #Tendulkar got so close to his 100th 100 but fell short on 76. Time for #India to take on #Zimbabwe at a Test – Zim cricket is back!! #
• Zimbabwe's two main power stations down because of "exogenous shocks" from transmission line in Mozambique – R Maarsdorp, Chair Zim Power Co #
• I wonder whether Tendulkar's quest for a 100th 100 will be as frustrating as the world's expectation that Bradnum end on an average of 100? #
• #South Africa cricket out for less than 100 – looks they are the ones who have been out of Test #cricket for 6 years rather than #Zimbabwe #
• #South Africa Cricket 111 for 1 on the 11-11-11 at just past 11 minutes to 11am!! #
• #Happy 11/11/11 #South Africa #Cricket team with 11 players at 111 for 1 at precisely 11am on 11-11-11 !!! #
• Must be the greatest #Nelson ever SA on 111 for 1 at 11 am on the 11-11-11 – now moved off it to 112 just after 11 #
• Now SA #cricket need 111 more to win at 11 minutes past 11am on the 11-11-11 – #Happy11 11-11 !! #
• At exactly 11 am on the 1-11-11 SA with 11 man team were on 111 for 1. Then at 11 mins past 11 on the 11-11-11 SA needed 111 to win. Howzat? #
• Amla out on 112 at double Nelson 111×2 (222) on the 11-11-11. Finally the 1s have run out… #
• Good for a laugh and also complimentary about Zimbabwe cricket http://t.co/kshnInGz – #
• Zimbabwe news: Brendan Taylor says Zimbabwe will continue being aggressive http://t.co/rVk9XWwd via @espncricinfo #