The Zimbabwean
3 April 2009

Schools will be closing this week after slightly more than one month of uninterrupted learning for our children. Notwithstanding a shortage of drugs, hospitals and clinics are open as nurses and doctors try to provide a service to the sick.

Other government departments, slowly, have started to function again as clerks, journeymen, drivers and all kinds of civil servants respond to the call by the new government to return to their workstations and get Zimbabwe running again.

We hope the lesson is not lost on those who have played Lord over us all these years, President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party – that honesty is not only good morals, it is also good business!

Civil servants still earn a pittance. The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe puts the cost of basic goods and services per month for an average family of six people at above US$370, more than three times the US$100 allowance that every government worker receives per month.

Immediately after his appointment, Education Minister David Coltart met striking teachers and openly told them that the government was broke. That he would need time to approach aid agencies for help to pay them, but that until such a time more funds were secured teachers would have to call off their strike and return to classrooms in the interests of the children – the future of our nation.

Coltart did not threaten to send the CIO after the leaders of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) if they did not call off the strike. He did not opt for cheap blackmail against teachers by accusing them of being sellouts on the pay of Britain in its plot to re-colonise Zimbabwe.

Coltart merely told the truth and it worked!

Likewise, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Finance Minister Tendai Biti have been open with civil servants and all Zimbabweans, readily admitting to the sorry state of government finances.

This openness has helped to inspire a nation to make more sacrifices in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today. And we hope that as Mugabe and company learn anew what a little honest can achieve, Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and their MDC formations are also taking note of the lessons of this moment in our country’s history.

For it is easier now to be generous with the truth because it is Zanu (PF) that will get blamed. But we know that the longer Tsvangirai and his team spend aboard the gravy train the greater will be the temptation to be economic with the truth, massage it, deny it or as the past few years have shown us, kill and persecute those who insist on telling the truth.

We do not seek a government of angels. We merely seek a government of honest men and women who may make mistakes, but who we can always say we know where they stand on matters that affect our interests as a people.

Zimbabwe Times
By Raymond Maingire
3 April 2009

HARARE – The government is under pressure to do away with this year’s June examinations following its continued failure to complete the marking of last year’s June and November public examinations due to a crippling strike by teachers over salaries.

Education, Arts, Sport and Culture minister, David Coltart told parliamentarians Wednesday that his ministry may consider jettisoning the June examinations.

He said government was still struggling to source funds to finance the staging of the examinations.
Coltart said his ministry had been inundated with calls from stakeholders who felt the June exams should be dropped to allow government to deal with those exams still outstanding.

He was responding to a question by Zaka Central legislator Harrison Mudzuri who asked what government was planning to do with regard to the June 2009 examinations.

Coltart said his ministry was recently given US$867 000 by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to finance the marking of the June and November 2008 exams.

He said the marking of the outstanding examination papers was now 99 percent complete.
“We have made substantial progress in that regard,” said Coltart.

“We have almost completed marking every single paper except for geography. Ninety nine percent of the papers are now complete.”

The process, said Coltart, was being delayed by the collating, upgrading and the capturing of the results into a database. He said the exam results could be out by the end of the next schools holiday.
Coltart, who is the Senator for Khumalo Constituency said a total of up to US$438 million was required within the next five months to restore stability to the education sector, once among the best in Africa.
He said this year’s budget allocation to the ministry was not sufficient to restore stability to the embattled sector in the short term.

In the absence of viable salaries paid to Zimbabwean teachers, Coltart said, his ministry was hamstrung in disciplining schools and teachers that demanded payment from parents outside the official fee structure.

“We will continue experiencing these ad hoc payment systems for as long as we are not able to pay viable salaries to teachers,” he said.

“This is going to take quite some time to stop. We can only start employing vigorous disciplinary measures against school heads and teachers once we start paying viable salaries to teachers.”
Minister Coltart was responding to a question by Muzarabani South legislator, Edward Raradza who asked if government was aware some rural schools were demanding goats, chicken and even cattle as supplementary payment for teachers.

Like all civil servants in Zimbabwe, teachers are paid a monthly allowance of US$100, which is not enough for their subsistence.

Coltart defended his ministry’s decision to exempt rural pupils from paying school fees saying part of the higher fees being charged on low density schools in urban areas, including monies sourced from the treasury would be channeled towards the upkeep of rural schools.

Coltart was also responding to concerns by the parliamentarians who felt the decision to drop tuition fees for rural primary schools would, in the long run, impact negatively on the development of primary schools in rural areas.

The Times
By Jan Raath
3 April 2009

All but one of Zimbabwe’s ministers from the former opposition has accepted an official Mercedes Benz.
When they were in opposition MDC politicians condemned the profligacy of Mr Mugabe’s Mercedes Benz-mobilised Zanu(PF) party.

Last September, when the agreement to form a power-sharing Government was signed, senior MDC figures made an informal decision never to accept an official Mercedes.
But it has now emerged that all but one of the 20 new ministers, including Morgan Tsvangirai and his two deputy prime ministers, is now making use of a $50,000 E280 model.

Eric Matinenga, a prominent human rights advocate and now Constitutional Affairs Minister, said he was “embarrassed” at his official Mercedes.

“It is a condition of plenty amidst deprivation,” he said. “But the reality on the ground is there there is no other. You cannot get an alternative — they become a convenient evil.”

Another minister who asked not to be named was surprised with the alacrity with which they were offered their limousines. “There was so much pressure on me to go and get it. I argued with them for a long time,” he said.

“Why were they so keen to give me a fancy car that I didn’t want? It really looked like they wanted to tar us with their own dirty brush.”

David Coltart, the new Education Minister, told The Times that he had not been in his office for 30 minutes on his first day in the job when a transport officer burst in and told him to hurry down to the government vehicle pool to collect his new Mercedes Benz.

“He said if didn’t come down now, someone else would get it,” he said.

“I had just come into a building with no running water and I was being offered a Mercedes Benz. It was astonishing.”

It was much the same for the rest of the 20 cabinet ministers of the two MDC factions on their first day at work — each told they now had a luxurious, three-litre official Mercedes E280 available to them
Mr Coltart, from the splinter faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was alone in declining the use of the car.

The Mercedes Benz has long been the symbol of sleaze and rapacity among Zimbabwe’s ruling elite under President Mugabe, who proclaims his supremacy with a $500,000 bombproof model S600L. As with the parasitic waBenzi class in most of Africa, they bled the country’s treasury to be able to roar down potholed roads and past ordinary people deprived of food, homes, medicine and education.
“The thing about driving a Merc is that it is not just a different car — it is a different planet. How can you be in touch with the people in a Mercedes?” once senior MDC official, now a minister, asked at the time.

Now the MDC has a dilemma, faced with being tainted as just more of the same waBenzi clique. Some officials claim it is a deliberate tactic by Mr Mugabe’s bureaucrats to offload spare Mercedes limousines on to MDC ministers and slowly “break the mould” of the factions’ image of incorruptibility.

According to Tendai Biti, the MDC Finance Minister, the cars were bought by the Central Bank a year ago but never distributed — “I have not bought any cars for anyone,” he said. “We either had to leave them to rot or sell them, and get half their value. It was cheaper to keep them. It was a matter of practicality.”

Of the Mercedes allocated to him, he said, “I don’t like it. Half the time I use a truck.”

There are other reasons to keep the cars: the state will only provide fuel, maintenance and official registration to the Mercs and not to ministers’ private cars. And with an official salary of $100 a month — the same as all ranks in the civil service — and a housing allowance paid in worthless Zimbabwean dollars, such costs are considerable.

Mr Coltart, who uses a Nissan Pathfinder 4X4, which he claims is cheaper to run and will get him to schools on appalling rural roads, said: “I made a pact in 2006 never to be seen in one.”

ZimEye.org
April 2, 2009

Harare (ZimEye) – The cash-strapped government has given 39 ministers poshy cars – Mercedes Benz at a time the country is facing a deepening economic crisis.

The Ministers received the cars last month and are enjoying the luxuries associated with driving the Mercedes Benz at the expense of ordinary Zimbabweans who are starving to death.

Government officials told the ZimEye that the ministers were given sparkling Mercedes Benz E280, valued at close to R1 million.

Only Minister of Education, Sport, Art and Culture David Coltart refused to drive a Mercedes Benz but opted for a Nissan Pathfinder.

Coltart confirmed that he rejected the vehicle because his ministry was one of the poorest, thus it would portray a wrong perception.

He said the money that bought the flashy Mercedes Benz could have been used to import food and meet the high demand of maize meal and other basic commodities.

President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai formed an inclusive government in February.

On Friday, the Ministers are enjoying an economic planning retreat in Victoria Falls where thousands of United States dollars will be spent.

31 March 2009
Sunday News

AFTER making sure that the schools stay open and last year’s public examinations results are released, the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture will turn to the restocking of schools with textbooks, the minister, Senator David Coltart, has said.

Speaking at a function to award prizes to pupils who had excelled in an international entrepreneurship programme at Eveline High School in Bulawayo last Friday, the minister said his ministry needed US$90 million to reach the one child to a textbook ratio.

He said that would only be possible with donors and the private sector partnering with government in reviving the education sector.

“There is a need for a partnership between the government and the private sector. The first concern is how we can get business to assist in the provision of necessities in the education sector,” he said.
Sen Coltart said this tied well with the objectives of the ministry.

“The first objective has been to keep schools open and the second objective to release results. I am now moving to the third goal, which is the provision of textbooks,” he said.

The minister said at some schools, textbook shortages had reached appalling levels with over 20 students sharing one textbook.

While in schools in high-density suburbs 20 students represent a third of the class, in low-density suburbs that could be the whole class.

Schools opened in February this year after closing in September last year with teachers boycotting classrooms due to poor remuneration.

A proposed boycott that threatened to derail the start of the second term did not take off as unions agreed to work with government in trying to find a solution to the challenges facing the sector.

“We will rely on the donor community. In my discussion with donors, I emphasised that once we secure that money, I want to make sure that the last cent is spent within Zimbabwe. There is a temptation to take camera ready copies of books for printing elsewhere outside the country,” he said.

He said his ministry also advised schoolchildren and parents to buy their school requirements in the country.

“What I want to achieve is to develop a partnership between locals companies, the donor community and the ministry of higher education,” he said.

He said the second aspect of his third objective was the restoration of some of education’s magnificent facilities.

“One of the tragedies though is that as I travelled around the country I found out that there are few government schools that are well maintained,” he said.

The senator said a strategy was needed to rebuild the educational structures.
“With the decline in education in a few years there is a danger that we will lose an entire generation,” he said.

Sen Coltart said Zimbabwe had a generation of young people who were talented academically, in sports, in arts and in other areas and those talents could not be let to go to waste.

“We should start off by looking at say 20 schools and through a partnership between government and the private sector rehabilitate them. About 40 percent of places in these schools will be reserved for the underprivileged from rural areas and high-density suburbs with companies providing them with scholarships. These centres of excellence will be for children talented academically, in sports and in arts,” he said.

Sen Coltart said the aim of these centres of excellence would not be to create elitist institutions, but institutions that will afford the underprivileged good education.

He said Zimbabwe should take a leaf from India that in the 1950s created centres of excellence that achieved a lot.

“Elsewhere in the world there has been productive collaboration between government and the private sector. We have to start somewhere, let’s all start dreaming and planning,” he said.

Pambazuka News
By Prespone Matawira (2009-03-26)
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/zimnotes/55141

Prespone Matawira talks about the challenges facing David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s new minister of education, sports, arts and culture, as he devises a strategy to re-build the education system in an economy where many parents can no longer afford to pay the fees required to cover the cost of schooling, the government’s coffers are bare and the country is estimated to to have less than half the number of teachers it needs.

‘Look,’ she said to me, pointing to the multi-coloured powder paint that had fallen onto the tarmac, ‘the rainbow fell on the floor.’ She stood there, eyes wide, hands on her hips, her oversized school uniform making her look smaller than her six years.

Then, I watched her skip away, satchel in tow, to the school hall. Yes, the rainbow had come crashing down from the sky and onto the floor, landing in the car park of a private school.

In these Associated Trust Schools (ATS), parents who are unable to pay school fees see their children excluded. Barred from the classroom, separated from their friends, these sprites are exiled to the school hall. There are many parents who struggle to make the fee payments which range from anything between US$500 to US$1500 per term (three months) depending on the school.

And the handful of private and state schools where parents can pay large supplements to teachers’ salaries to subsidise the running of the school, are the only ones that are fully functional at the moment.

But in a bold move this week, the new minister of education, sports, arts and culture, David Coltart, announced that no child should be excluded from school for non-payment of fees. Arrangements for payment in instalments now have to be made to ensure that every child, no matter the school, has access to education.

This is just the beginning of what Mr Coltart, who reported for duty only a month ago, has had to deal with.

From once having one of the highest standards of education in Africa, recording a 72 per cent national O-level pass rate in the mid 1990s, last year this figure crashed to 11 per cent. With the 1990 implementation of Economic Structural Adjustment, the Zimbabwean government spent less and less on education, so that by 2006 expenditure on education was only 13 per cent of the national budget. By this time hyper-inflation had begun to bite, and it is estimated that in 2008, the value of government spending per child was equivalent to just 18 cents.

The many children in government-run schools did not receive an education last year. The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe estimates that the majority of pupils in the country had a total of 23 days uninterrupted in the classroom. The academic year should have just been cancelled.

Last year saw teachers go on strike, their salaries worthless, eroded by economic stagnation and inflation that was officially pegged at 231 million per cent. Many teachers simply could not afford to go to work because their monthly pay was less than the bus fare for the same period. This, coupled with election violence, the assault of teachers by ZANU PF militia, the looting of schools and the use of some school premises as torture centres dealt the final blow to Zimbabwe’s education system.

And now, virtually all rural schools are closed as well as some urban ones. Even if they were open and teachers tried to teach, the vast majority of schools do not have desks, they do not have textbooks, chalk or exercise books. They are overwhelmed by water and power cuts, their buildings are in a state of disrepair and children are adrift.

Nothing is more true than for some of Zimbabwe’s most vulnerable, homeless, hungry and abused: street kids. At a workshop held at Streets Ahead, a care and drop-in service for street children, girls write and paint their dreams – murals of beautiful visions of healthy and happy futures. Here girls and boys can drop in during the day, take a shower, have a meal and engage in activities such as art, drama and craft. Its a classroom even though it may not be formally recognised as such. There are many such classroom spaces in and around Zimbabwe, without walls or desks. Its an unidyllic idyll.

The girls talk and discuss as they work. As economic orphans (children left behind whilst their parents go in search of foreign curreny), girl headed households mean that girls shoulder the burden of care. Sexual violence and rape has meant that many girls now nurse babies.

But the small people go on with the business of living and learning. There are many ways to learn, formal and informal, and life in Zimbabwe teaches children skills to survive.

No matter where they are located, children always find time to play, run, laugh, have mud fights, right in the midst of everything. Life always goes on for the living. Children dream dreams even though the rainbow has fallen out of the sky.

In the formal learning domain, teachers have threatened to go on strike at the end of April 2009 if their salary demands are not met. Coltart makes no bones of the fact that right now the coffers are empty. Before he can fund teachers demands, he needs to know how many teachers he has. There is no computerised database at present and the department’s records are apparently in a chaotic state. In the past few years, many teachers have left Zimbabwe, for jobs elsewhere. It is believed that the number of teachers currently in Zimbabwe is less than 50 per cent of a full complement of 140 000.

A think tank comprised of educationalists from various sectors has been put together in order to provide strategic direction and advise in rebuilding and reviving education in Zimbabwe. The board includes amongst others, former minister of education Fay Chung, Zimbabwe Teachers Association president Tendai Chikoore, politician Trudy Stevenson, clergy man Father Joe Arimoso and Stanly Hadebe.

Infrastructure is important. Having the teachers in place is important. Having the money is important. But one of the lessons that we can take from history is that these things are not enough. Education is one of those rights that requires active mobilisation, organisation and vigilance. We have to think outside of the current parameters. What kind of country do we want? What kinds of citizens do we want in this country? What kind of curriculum is going to facilitate that?

In Zimbabwe today, education includes the participation of everyone – children, women, men, the young and the elderly – everyone has to work to construct new relations and consciousness both inside and outside the classroom. This includes a broad, relevant and dynamic curriculum, healthy cultures of questioning, debate and critique. It includes an expanded understanding of what constitutes education. Participation in seminars, assemblies, walks, volunteer work, acts of solidarity, coming together across the divides to learn and teach reading and writing, to talk and discuss, and more than this, to read and write the reality of life.

This is the hard work.

This is the work that will reflect and refract a gazillion rainbows in the lives of that six-year-old little girl standing in the school parking lot, and for hundreds and thousands like her all around the country.

* Prespone Matawira is a Zimbabwean feminist and activist who contributes to the new Chii Chirikuita: What’s up? blog.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

New York Times
Editorial
29 March 2009

Zimbabwe’s new power-sharing government isn’t ideal. Robert Mugabe remains president, despite losing last year’s election. His loyalists remain in charge of the army, the Justice Ministry and other key posts that allow them to arrest and intimidate opponents.

Yet respected and competent former opposition leaders now run important ministries like health, education and finance. These reformers ran on the promise of improving the lives of Zimbabwe’s long-suffering people.

The United States and Europe can help them deliver on those promises by providing increased financial resources. Zimbabwe’s own economy has been bled dry by decades of Mr. Mugabe’s disastrous policies, which have destroyed its currency, crippled its agriculture, mining and industry, and blighted millions of lives through preventable famine and epidemics.

Any new resources must be packaged in ways that ensure they are used for their intended purposes. And without continued sanctions targeted against Mr. Mugabe and his thuggish collaborators, even the limited progress so far achieved could easily be reversed. The challenge is to keep the pressure on the relatively few villains committed to keeping Mr. Mugabe in power, while providing some relief to the millions of victims of his catastrophic misrule.

To this end, the United States and the European Union have rightly restricted travel and frozen assets of Mr. Mugabe and his top collaborators. They have banned trade with businesses and banks used to finance the repressive apparatus. These targeted steps mainly discomfit a narrow, privileged elite.

Washington has also suspended direct development aid to Zimbabwe’s government but provides considerable humanitarian aid, channeled through private and international agencies, to pay for emergency shipments of food, medicine and clean water. Over the last 18 months, while Zimbabwe has been ravaged by a cholera epidemic, American aid has been more than $250 million.

That conduit should now be expanded to cover such life-sustaining items as seed, fertilizer and water and sewage systems to help Zimbabwe stand on its own feet.

At least for now, American aid should continue to be channeled indirectly, not to Zimbabwe’s government. But increased humanitarian aid could free up more of Zimbabwe’s own funds to pay living wages to teachers, doctors and other essential civil servants. If Zimbabwe’s government acts on that opportunity, it might then be time to reopen discussion on resuming direct aid.

The Independent on Sunday (UK),
29 March 2009
By Daniel Howden

Shops are well-stocked; rubbish is being collected; and teachers are back at work. But Mugabe is still in power and the land thefts continue

Behind the high bougainvillea hedges of Harare’s more affluent suburbs, there are the first murmurings of a possible improvement in daily life in Zimbabwe – at least in the capital. In some places, long-forgotten public services have stirred. Rubbish is being collected, and workmen have even been seen painting white lines on the pot-holed roads. Gone are the bread queues and the snaking lines of cars awaiting black-market fuel. The sugar, soap, cooking oil and eggs that arrived in minibus convoys from Botswana to the west, or north from South Africa, can now be bought locally. Printed price tags, consigned to folk memory during the nightmare of hyperinflation, have made a tentative reappearance in some shops as the disappearance of the Zimbabwean dollar, and its replacement with the US dollar and the South African rand, stabilises costs.

In smarter areas such as Borrowdale, where President Robert Mugabe has his walled mansion, or Avondale, where the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, lives, the shelves of supermarkets are stuffed with imported goods. In so-called “high-density suburbs” such as Glen View and Warren Park – townships built under white rule as holding areas for cheap black labour – the schools have reopened, with teachers back at work after ending their five-month strike. “I am happy for now, since I’m now able to get $100 per month, which is more than what Mugabe was giving us,” said Ncube, a teacher in Norton, outside Harare. “The good thing is that prices of basic goods have gone down drastically, and having US dollars is meaningful.” Since Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) agreed to join Mr Mugabe’s government in January, education has been run by David Coltart, elected last year as an opposition senator.

Does this mean Zimbabwe is at last turning the corner after a nightmare 12 months in which the country was engulfed by political violence, the economy collapsed and basic services deteriorated to the point where cholera, an easily preventable disease, was rampant? One answer might be that, in some respects, things have at least stopped getting worse. Political intimidation is down, and most prominent government opponents are out of detention. Even Roy Bennett, the gruff former farmer and outspoken Mugabe critic, has been released on bail to join his MDC colleagues in the new government, although the President told cabinet colleagues that he would “never” swear in his old adversary to his appointed role as deputy minister of agriculture. The World Health Organisation had some good news about the cholera crisis last week. An epidemic that long ago surpassed its worst-case scenario by a third, with 90,000 infections, was “past its peak”, the UN agency said. As the rainy season ends, the expected drop in new cases has come, slowing from 3,800 a week to 2,000 by mid-March. “The situation with the cholera outbreak is improving,” the WHO said from its headquarters in Geneva.
Senior members of the MDC have used such developments to argue that it is time for the international community and Western donors to re-engage with Zimbabwe. That process may well begin at a regional summit which opens tomorrow. Zimbabweans have received forceful support from South Africa’s president-in-waiting, Jacob Zuma, who described the refusal to hand large sums in aid to the Mugabe-led government as “very unfair to the Zimbabwean people”. Mr Zuma, who is poised to take office after the South African election on 22 April, said last week: “You cannot say [Zimbabwe] has stabilised, but it has entered a phase of stabilisation politically.” The unity government was the only option, claimed Mr Zuma: “There was nothing else.” He even had unprecedented words of support for Zimbabwe’s 85-year-old President: “When there was an election, it is not as if not a single human being voted for Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He had a very big percentage himself.”

What if donors do not heed Mr Zuma’s words, and fail to support a prompt peace dividend to ordinary Zimbabweans? The country’s widely respected new finance minister, Tendai Biti, was in no doubt. “The consequences of it [the unity government] not working are drastic,” he said. “It will lead to a failure of the state, a collapse of the state and all the civil unrest that follows the failure of a state.” Some diplomats viewed this as a threat, but most understood that such an outburst, from the man commonly viewed as the most capable thinker in MDC ranks, reflects the increasing desperation in his party. The former opposition understands all too well that the image of recovery in Zimbabwe is false. Mr Biti and his colleagues no longer speak of the “benchmarks” they set when entering the new government, by which those outside it could judge its progress and the good faith of Mr Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. Those criteria are worth recalling: the release of political prisoners, the appointment of new regional governors, the sacking of both the attorney general and the reserve bank governor, the restoration of the rule of law, and an end to farm invasions. Only one of those benchmarks has been met in any meaningful way: even then not all prisoners have been released, and those that have are on bail, still facing trumped-up charges.

This explains the reaction of a team from the International Monetary Fund, which said last week there would be no new investment until the government changed its “track record”. The next day a fresh commitment of $10m from Sweden bypassed the government in Harare and went straight to humanitarian agencies. There remain virtually no jobs outside the state sector, and remittances from the three million Zimbabweans working abroad – a crucial lifeline for families left behind – are in decline as the global recession squeezes hard. While “dollarisation” has meant a welcome return of goods and services for those with access to currency, for the majority it has spelled disaster. There is practically no money in the system, and the government has been forced to switch from cash payments to civil servants to coupons, most of which are now being refused as banks do not have the cash to redeem them.

The experience of Rumbi Kazingizi, a housewife, is frighteningly common. “Food is still not easily available,” she said. “Although it’s now cheap, where to get the money to buy the food is the biggest challenge.” A mother of three from the middle-class Glen Norah area, Mrs Kazingizi admits many are worse off. “We have orphans and widows who are failing to get even a dollar per day,” she said. “How are they expected to survive?” Meanwhile the farm invasions, so long an accurate indicator of the intentions of Mr Mugabe’s political allies, have intensified. With them the uncertain nature of the junior partner’s role in government becomes clearer. While the finance minister appeals for outside funds, his Zanu PF colleagues in the cabinet sign off paperwork allowing fresh farm seizures, and the Prime Minister rages against “land thefts”. And while Mr Tsvangirai and his allies find they are responsible for delivering progress, with their own political credibility on the line, they are facing a bitter realisation: they have given the powerful clique around Mr Mugabe the political space to carry on regardless.

The Standard
29 March 2009

THE government’s directive to schools to enrol ‘A’ Level students based on last year’s mid-year examinations will backfire as most students did not write any tests because of the prolonged strike by teachers, educationists have warned.

They said the move, sanctioned by Education Minister David Coltart, could compromise Zimbabwe’s already battered examination system.

Schools were ordered to enrol Form V students earlier this month in the wake of delays by the Zimbabwe School Examinations Councils (Zimsec) to release ‘O’ Level results.

The examinations body is still battling to complete the marking of the November examinations, which were held back by the job boycott that paralysed the education sector.

Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) secretary general, Paul Gundani said the directive showed that the inclusive government wanted to pretend that the education sector could be rehabilitated overnight.

“The process is not credible at all,” Gundani said.

“This is why we had demanded that ‘O’ Level exams should be marked so that they could be used as the basis for the selection of the students.

“The government would like to pretend as if things are fine but this will cause a lot of confusion as some undeserving students might be enrolled.

“They should have waited for the ‘O’ Level exams to be marked.”

The ministry has remained mum on what would happen to students who fail their ‘O’ Level examinations after having started Form V lessons.

Concerned parents in Gweru said the directive would worsen the chaos in the education sector.
“The announcement by the ministry that schools can take in Lower VI students is a clear indication that our education sector has collapsed,” said Nhamo Ndawana.

“How can a student proceed to ‘A’ Level without completing ‘O’ Level.”

Some of the parents complained that they could be forced into unnecessary expenses if their children eventually failed their ‘O’ Level examinations.

“Imagine after having looked for a place, bought uniforms, stationery and paid fees and then you discover your child has not passed ‘O’ Level,” said Tsungi Mutambira whose son, Geshem wrote his ‘O’ Levels last year.

Schools were also forced to enrol Form I students before their Grade VII results were issued.

Meanwhile, Matabeleland North has recorded a poor turnout of teachers responding to the amnesty extended by the government earlier this month.

This has resulted in most schools operating with less than five teachers, stakeholders who attended a crisis meeting held last week heard.

Lupane East legislator, Njabuliso Mguni, who attended the meeting at Mabhikwa High School said teachers were citing poor working conditions and lack of reliable transport as one of the reasons that forced them to shun the province.

“Headmasters of schools in that region were unanimous on the huge shortage of teachers,” Mguni said.
“They were all saying their schools were operating with plus or minus 5% of their normal requirements, meaning that each school had less than five teachers each, against a normal requirement of over 10 per school.

“The headmasters were saying that the reason for the lack of teachers was that returning teachers are reluctant to take up teaching posts in that region because of lack of basic learning material, resources, facilities and infrastructure.”

Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe secretary general Raymond Majongwe said lack of basic learning materials and resources at rural schools was frustrating returning teachers.

Coltart granted amnesty to returning teachers so that they can be admitted back into the public service without questions in a bid to quickly bridge the gap of a biting shortage of the education professionals.

PTUZ estimates over 25 000 teachers quit their jobs in frustration over low pay.
Coltart was not available for comment Saturday.

Aid agencies said at the end of last year only 20% of children were still attending school, down from 85% a year earlier.

The Zimbabwe Telegraph
By DEWA MAVHINGA
Published: Saturday, March 28, 2009

I have had a small privilege of living in, and closely observing the politics of a number of countries outside Zimbabwe.

It is that exposure that brings me to my present reflections on Zimbabwean politics.

Having been born and bred in Zimbabwe, where politicians are literally worshipped and elevated to levels of sanctimony and divinity, l was pleasantly surprised to observe that in some jurisdictions politicians are treated as (and actually behave like) ordinary people. I believe Zimbabwe needs a new kind of politics.

I present this appeal to MDC to bring a breath of fresh air on the national political scene and break free of ZANU-PF politics that have characterized Zimbabwe for the past three decades. The following could points for MDC leaders to reflect on:

BE ACCESSIBLE: Political leaders must be accessible to the people. In order to effectively represent the people, the leader must ensure that people have clear ways of reaching him or her with their problems.

The culture we had become accustomed to in the past 30 years is of leaders who only become visible and accessible during election time but quickly vanish once they have gotten the vote.

MDC leaders must take care not to make this mistake of taking the electorate for granted.

Some political leaders make the common mistake of thinking that forever pretending to be busy enhances one’s importance in the eyes of the community and that accessibility makes one too common.

Of what use is a leader who is not available to deal with the problems and concerns of the electorate?

DON’T USE POLITICS TO GET RICH OVERNIGHT:

A belief widely held is that perhaps the quickest way to riches is via politics. Instead of serving the people, the preoccupation is accumulation of wealth through abuse of political office.

In 2005, the then ZANU-PF provincial Chairman for Mashonaland West, Philip Chiyangwa is reported to have said, “Do you want to get rich? Then join ZANU-PF.”

For many MDC leaders, due to the obvious vulnerability arising from rather unfortunate financial circumstances, keeping on the high ground may prove to be a challenge of note.

It is encouraging and worth celebrating, if true, that MDC Senator David Coltart did not accept the government ministerial Mercedes Benz car offered to him. To refuse the conventional ‘symbol of power’ is indeed a symbol of principle.

It sends a powerful message that one is not in a position of leadership for the financial benefits that may come with it. Our political leaders are urged to learn the virtues of a simple life of selfless service to truth and justice.

LET YOUR YES BE YES AND NO BE NO:

MDC leaders have a challenge to demonstrate that it is possible to be a politician and an honest person at the same time.

After decades of being taken for granted, being lied to and a litany of broken promises, the people of Zimbabwe, l believe, are looking for honest political leaders who deliver on their promises.

Politics is not about making promises that one cannot deliver; it is about being honest, truthful and frank about the situation. An anecdote is often told of a politician who believed that politics was all about making promises, no matter how irrelevant to the circumstances.

At one rally the politician promised to build a bridge for the community. When it was pointed out that there is no river in the area he went on to promise to build a river first!

In the same vein of keep promises, l ought to mention it here that there is a tendency in Zimbabwe for people generally and political leaders particularly, not to value time.

Almost invariably, my meetings with political leaders in Zimbabwe tend to be well after time of appointment. And yet this does not seem to bother them.

This attitude of not placing value on time at present permeates most government departments. People wait for hours to be served, not because there is a reason for the delay, but simply because people have become accustomed to that casual approach to work and time.

BE HUMBLE AND LISTEN, REALLY LISTEN:

For those who learnt their politics at the feet of ZANU-PF, humility is anathema. For them the mark of leadership is arrogance and aloofness.

Without humility it is impossible to accept criticism as a legitimate and essential aspect of democracy. Within ZANU-PF no criticism is tolerated. Those who sought to criticize the leadership soon discovered that there was a high price to pay.

Edgar Tekere, Eddison Zvobgo, Dzikamai Mavhaire and Jonathan Moyo are but examples of people victimized merely for criticizing ZANU-PF.

The war mentality that views criticism as betrayal must be eradicated. We must feel free to openly disagree and criticize our political leaders without feeling that we have instantly become enemies or that we need to look over the shoulder all the time as a result.

Many of those still practicing the politics of yesteryear have become completely cut off from the people and have, as a result, lost the common touch.

I remember, at the height of the cholera crisis, l engaged in animated debate with a colleague over whether President Robert Mugabe, ensconced at State House, really had any idea what ordinary people were going through in their daily lives.

We wait to find out if our erstwhile colleagues in MDC will keep the communication lines open to listen and engage. Some political leaders have perfected the art of pretense; of listening without really listening.

Such an art has no place when leaders see it is as their duty to genuinely engage with the people.
Only when politicians begin to genuinely listen to the electorate can they begin to look beyond their personal interests to those of the community at large.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE:
Political leaders ought always to use the kind of language that promotes national healing and nation building.

Surely we have had enough of the kind of venomous verbiage that Nathaniel Manheru spewed and splattered every Saturday.

Even political slogans of chanting, ‘Down with so and so!’ should be a thing of the past.

SUPPORT AND ENSURE GENUINE WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION:

The MDC must quickly move to enhance genuine participation of women in reconstruction, national healing and nation building and move away from the ZANU-PF approach of mere tokenism.

If one considers ZANU-PF’s national heroes as a measure of participation in national political life, one would note that of the 75 people today buried at the National Heroes Acre Shrine, only 4 are women (Sally Mugabe, Julia Zvobgo, Ruth Chinamano and Mama MaFuyana Nkomo).

And all these 4 women are there primarily as spouses. There is need to alter the political terrain and environment and make it conducive for women’s unfettered participation. One way of achieving this is to physical political violence as well as use of violent and uncouth language in politics. Women need not be thick-skinned first before they can venture into political life. It must not be a calling with a high price to pay for women simply because they are women. If our leaders hold dear to all these values then in no time the whole nation will be seized with this new attitude fueled by the fervent pursuit of a new kind of politics. Like ripples, the waves of goodwill will gently spread to every nook and cranny of the country. To my mind, this of change of mindset, among other things, may be just the needed catalyst to prompt Zimbabwe, like the legendary phoenix, to rise from the ashes to become yet again the paradise of Africa.