Los Angeles Times
By Robyn Dixon
March 11, 2009

Reporting from Harare, Zimbabwe — Why are all those women carrying buckets of water on their heads?

That was the first riddle that David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s new education minister, faced last month as he walked into his high-rise headquarters.

“The reason is that the whole of the Ministry of Education, 18 floors, has no water in it. So my first, immediate task was to get the pump repaired. If you walk down the stairwells you will gag, the stench is so bad on some floors,” Coltart said in an interview in his new office. (Most of the bathrooms still weren’t working.)

Until a few weeks ago, the Dickensian halls of the Education Ministry belonged to President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. Now under the new “unity government,” the ministry is run by his political opponents in the Movement for Democratic Change. The deal was forced on the MDC by African leaders to resolve a standoff over last year’s disputed elections, in which ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority.

“It’s like the dark hole of Calcutta,” Coltart said.

Mugabe’s legacy of busted plumbing and peeling paint is the least of the problems Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC party face in this shotgun marriage of a government: The country’s finances are catastrophic; vital services such as health, education, power and water are paralyzed; and the man still calling the shots seems more fond of power plays than power sharing.

Tsvangirai promises reform and a better future, but he’s trapped in a difficult situation. Without money from the West, his team has no hope of success. But he is unlikely to get that aid with Mugabe in power. And failure by Tsvangirai would suit Mugabe and his hard-line allies just fine.

The prime minister’s effort to sell the unity government as a reform administration took a telling blow last week when President Obama ignored his call to end Western sanctions imposed against Mugabe and his cronies. Instead, the U.S. leader extended them another year.

A rare moment of real unity between the rivals has come as Tsvangirai faces his most difficult hour: the death of his wife of 31 years in a car accident. Mugabe visited Tsvangirai in the hospital the night of her death, staying for more than an hour.

At a memorial service Tuesday, Mugabe expressed grief and even referred to Tsvangirai by his first name — a rare moment for a president who has shown open disdain for his prime minister.

“We are sincerely saddened by the death of Susan and we hope that Morgan will remain strong,” Mugabe said. He called for an end to violence and said Zimbabweans needed to work peacefully together.

Yet political prisoners — including several close allies of Tsvangirai — remain in prison and power struggles continue.

The wrangling between ZANU-PF and the MDC over control of the public service sector could make or break Tsvangirai’s bid for reform.

Last month, Mugabe infuriated Tsvangirai by unilaterally appointing the heads of public services. Tsvangirai put out a statement declaring the appointments null and void, but he lacks the power to reverse them.

Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe for 29 years, couldn’t resist a snide prod at the MDC: “You must also grant that we have new people and they would be making a few mistakes. Well, if mistakes are outrageous, naturally they put people off. But we try to correct each other,” he said in a recent Zimbabwean television interview. The MDC had assumed that control of public services resided with the Public Service Ministry, and the party made sure to win that portfolio in negotiations on the unity government. But it was wrong.

Once in government, MDC officials stumbled upon an inconspicuous bureaucrat named Mariyawanda Nzuwa; as chairman of the Public Service Commission, he has the power to hire and fire any public servant and to block senior appointments by the MDC.

MDC strategists say that Nzuwa is so powerful that he’s Mugabe’s de facto prime minister, a key ally in the battle to control top public servants and freeze out the MDC.

But nowhere is the dysfunctional marriage more strained than in the Home Affairs Ministry, which is now run by two ministers — one MDC, the other ZANU-PF.

The MDC minister, Giles Mutsekwa, a former army major, is the lone opposition figure in the agency, which is in charge of the police. Mutsekwa has to grapple with both his ZANU-PF counterpart and the hard-line police commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, a bitter opponent of change.

Even Mutsekwa’s personal assistant seems a problem. When the minister agreed to an interview with The Times recently, she briskly countermanded him.
Those kinds of power struggles, small and large, are unfolding every day, some behind closed doors, others in the headlines.

One way to get people’s loyalty, the MDC figures, is to make sure they’re paid. The first thing MDC Finance Minister Tendai Biti did was pay soldiers, police and other civil servants in foreign currency vouchers, a move designed to kick-start the economy, but also to win their support.

But what if the money dries up? Zimbabwe needs about $100 million a month for operational expenses, half of which is the government’s payroll. Its monthly receipts are about $10 million.

“They need desperately to get some money,” said one diplomat in Harare, the capital, speaking on condition of anonymity, as is customary for envoys. “It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. They need to show they can make a go of it. But if they don’t get the money, it’s difficult to make a go of it.”

The MDC believes that the unity government will die without a financial rescue package from the West.
“The only way we can resuscitate education in the short term is if we get donor support,” Coltart said. “To get that, we have to overcome the extreme skepticism of the donor community. We have to show that we are all acting with goodwill and that we are all committed to make this global political agreement work,” he said, speaking of the unity government.

But with some political activists still in jail, and continuing evictions of white farmers from their land, the hard-liners who oppose the unity government can send a message they are still in charge and block any hope of a rescue package.

The West’s conditions for engagement include economic stability and reform, the release of political prisoners, news media freedom and restoration of the rule of law.

“The question is whether ZANU-PF is willing to go there,” the diplomat said.

That leaves the MDC ministers doing what little they can in their departments, without much money or support.

During an interview in his Health Ministry office, Henry Madzorera offers a litany of problems: There are widespread staff shortages and no medicines, hospital equipment doesn’t work and ambulances are broken down. It would take $700 million to fix the system, he says.

As the interview ends, he has his own question.

“Do you know any donors who would help us?”

The MDC’s struggle for funding is exacerbated by perceptions that Mugabe remains firmly in charge — the main barrier for Western donors.

“I’m still in control and hold executive authority,” Mugabe said at a recent celebration of his 85th birthday, “so nothing much has changed.”

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

VOA
By Blessing Zulu & Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye
Washington
11 March 2009

The Australian government on Wednesday broke ranks with other Western nations on aid to the new government in Zimbabwe, saying it will expand its assistance to beyond humanitarian assistance to help the national unity government in Harare serve the population.

Canberra said it would provide A$10 million – about US$6.5 million – to help the United Nations Children’s Fund provide water treatment chemicals to cities and towns across the country to help check a persistent cholera epidemic. The other A$5 million will be channeled through the British Department for International Development to expand financial incentives to health workers who went on strike in late 2008 and recently started trickling back to work.

Though the new assistance addresses humanitarian issues – the cholera epidemic, national health care – a statement issued in the name of Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith made clear that Canberra was making a clear shift in policy towards Harare.

A statement posted on the Web site of Australia’s Agency for International Development noted that Canberra’s aid to Harare to date “has been limited to humanitarian aid.”

But, it continued, “The Government plans to expand Australian assistance to support efforts by Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his ministers to bring sustainable and long-term improvements to the lives of Zimbabweans.”

The Australian government “recognizes there are some risks to this approach. We are under no illusions about the fragility of the political situation in Zimbabwe,” it said.

The United States has said it will restrict assistance to meeting humanitarian needs, and will not provide development assistance, until there is clear evidence the Harare government has reformed on human rights, the rule of law, economic policy, and other issues.

Europe and Britain in particular have adopted a similar position.

Zimbabwean Education Minister David Coltart told reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that he is pleased Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who he met last year, is following through on his promise to assist the unity government in Harare.

In a related development, Chairman Kudzanai chimedza of the Hospital Doctors Association said his members will go back on strike Thursday as they have yet to receive hard currency allowances that were to be paid by UNICEF to get key health staff back to work.

Dr. Chimedza told reporter Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that his association will reopen talks with the government, having lost faith in donors.

VOA was unable to immediately obtain comment from UNICEF on the complaint.

The Herald
EDITORIAL
10 March 2009

Every Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture faces a dilemma when setting school fees for State schools and considering applications for levies over and above these.

He first needs to ensure that the entitlement every Zimbabwean child has to at least 11 years of formal education is a practical and attainable entitlement, not some pie in the sky.

This means that a substantial majority of parents and guardians must be able to afford the fees, although it does not necessarily mean that they need to be able to afford them easily or without some sacrifice.

There must then be a reasonable scheme to ensure that the State can pay the fees of the minority whose parents or guardians cannot afford to pay.

But the second factor every Minister has to consider is that despite having the largest budget of any ministry, the money from the taxpayer is not enough to give every child in every State school a minimum decent education. Parents must chip in, and chip in with a substantial amount.

In the 1980s and 1990s successive ministers introduced and refined a system whereby parents who could pay more had to pay more and communities of parents who wanted to pay more for better facilities were encouraged to raise the required levies.

This allowed the ministry to allocate its extremely limited resources by need, rather than dividing them fairly among all children.

More State resources were spent on a rural child than on an urban child, and more went on children in working class suburbs than on the children of the middle classes.

This did lead to differences, sometimes marked differences, in the quality of resources at State schools but that was accepted, and there was the positive side that ever-higher standards were being created that all State schools could aim at and one day achieve.

Total equality tends to encourage total equality of mediocrity.

Minister David Coltart last week returned to those principles that had allowed Zimbabwe to race ahead of most of Africa and give every child seven years of primary education (eight years as the Grade 0 classes become common) and at least four years of secondary education with standards rising each year.

The tuition fees he set for his own State schools, ranging from zero for rural primary schools to US$70 a month for sixth forms in low-density urban suburbs, are not unreasonable.

Most families can afford the fees for the school their children are zoned for with some sacrifices and careful budgeting.

There are two problems, right now, though that the Minister needs to take into account.
Many parents earning salaries and wages, rather than deriving income from a business, have not been paid yet in hard currency although most will be so paid by the end of this month.

VOA
By Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye
Washington
10 March 2009

Former Zimbabwe Cricket Coach Kevin Curran said Tuesday that the country poses no health risk to foreign teams following the news that Canada’s team had canceled a scheduled tour later this month citing concerns about the cholera epidemic sweeping the country.

Other Western cricket teams have canceled tours of Zimbabwe citing Harare’s human rights record, most recently New Zealand, which also cited concerns about player safety.

Education and Sports Minister David Coltart of the Movement for Democratic Change formation led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara has been trying to encourage Western teams to tour Zimbabwe now that a new government is in place.

Former Zimbabwean coach Curran told reporter Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the cancellation is a blow for the Canadian as well as the Zimbabwean squads as both need the international exposure ahead of the World Cup.

The SA Times
By Moses Mudzwiti
9 March 2009

Zimbabwe’s month-old unity government has scored a massive coup by persuading nearly all striking teachers to return to work.

Last month David Coltart the new education minister promised schooling would be back to normal by today (Monday March 9).

Lovemore Matombo the president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions on Monday said teachers who had downed their chalk as far back as 2007 had returned.

The ZCTU president said: “There has been a high subscription of those returning.”

Pay disputes over the last few years had seen running battles between teachers and the state disrupt schooling for long periods.

“Three quarters of all teachers are back,” said Matombo.

Coltart successfully negotiated with striking teachers to report for work by the beginning of the month.

At the time teachers were demanding salaries of about 2 300 us dollars.

However, Matombo said salary negotiations were still going on and an appropriate structure would be formulated to reward different levels in the teaching profession.

Zimbabwe’s school system had collapsed under the weight of poor state funding and striking teachers. Last year the elections also contributed to major disruptions in the school system.

A good number of teachers were roped in as polling agents.

Matters came to a head early this year when the examinations’ authorities failed to produce end-of-year results for grade seven and senior secondary.

Authorities said they had no money to pay teachers to mark the crucial examinations.

Children leaving primary could not progress to secondary schools and those wanting to enter university and other tertiary colleges were stuck.

Last month Coltart met donor nations and secured enough funds to pay teachers. They have since marked some of the papers.

Matombo said he was upbeat about the positive developments in the education department.
“I am happy,” said the ZCTU president.

Sunday News
8 March 2009
Sports Reporter

THE Bulawayo team finished unbeaten at the two-day Gray-Nicolls Zimbabwe social cricket tournament, which ended at Queens Sports Club yesterday.

Led by Adrian Fairburn and featuring former Zimbabwe internationals Heath Streak, Wayne James, the Rennie brothers John and Gavin, Bulawayo won all their three matches.

Last Friday, Bulawayo, inspired by half centuries from Gavin Rennie and Streak beat Victoria Falls by 60 runs. Yesterday, they beat Harare by an eight-wicket victory and then went on to thump Benoni Bombers, a team from South Africa by eight wickets.

A large number of fans who included the Minister of Education, Sport Arts and Culture David Coltart turned out for the event organised by Gray-Nicolls Zimbabwe representative Gareth Jocks and meant to raise money for old people’s homes in Bulawayo.

The Standard
By CAIPHAS CHIMHETE
8 March 2009

SOME schools, mainly in rural areas, remain closed after returning teachers were chased away by state security agents and war veterans who accused them of supporting the Movement for Democratic Change.
Most of the teachers, who fled their schools in the run–up to the bloody June 27 presidential election run-off in which over 150 MDC activists were murdered, were reportedly shocked when they were received by the same hostile forces on their return.

The unity government made up of the two MDC formations and Zanu PF formed last month has prioritised reopening of schools closed since last year because of the violence and a prolonged strike.

The move to pay teachers in foreign currency had renewed hopes that normalcy would return to the education sector, with reports teachers who had deserted the profession almost two years ago were eager to return.

But the country’s two major teacher unions said the harassment of teachers, especially in Mashonaland West, Central and East provinces was threatening the return of teachers.

The Progressive Teachers’ Union (PTUZ) and the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) raised the issue with the new Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart last week.

“We raised the issue with the minister (Wednesday) and he said he was immediately sending a fact-finding mission into the three provinces,” said PTUZ national treasurer Ladistous Zunde.

Sifiso Ndlovu, the acting Zimta chief executive officer said indications were that some civil servants were involved in the harassment of teachers.

“In one of the cases, a teacher in Mashonaland Central was threatened with death by a member of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO),” Ndlovu said.

“We recommended to him that he seeks intervention from the provincial director and we are still waiting to hear the outcome.”

The most affected areas were provinces where President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF commands majority support and which were the epicentre of the June 27 electoral violence.

Coltart confirmed receiving reports of the harassment and urged the affected teachers to report to their district offices for assistance.

“We are concerned that those teachers had to flee for their lives,” he said. “We urge people to co-exist for the benefit of the country.”

Some teachers were also failing to redeem the US$100 vouchers they were given by government as salaries for last month as banks do not have enough foreign currency.

Others even failed to get the vouchers because their headmasters had left the country seeking greener pastures abroad.

The remaining teachers had no mandate to collect pay-sheets and vouchers from the Ministry of Education’s regional offices.

Both government and teachers’ organisations confirmed last week that hundreds of teachers were yet to receive their salaries almost two weeks after they were released.

PTUZ national co-ordinator Oswald Madziwa said the disbursement of vouchers was “chaotic” with some of them sent to the wrong province.

Coltart said the Ministry of Finance, which had been alerted, would address the issue of vouchers.

Zunde said in addition, some headmasters were turning back teachers who had either absconded or resigned despite a government directive to take them back without questions being asked.

He said the problem had arisen because the government had not properly communicated its decision to grant amnesty to the affected teachers.

Coltart said: “They are covered by the general amnesty granted by government…they qualify for amnesty.”
The general amnesty covers teachers who resigned or absconded between January 2007 and this year.

Zimbabwe’s schools require more than 200 000 teachers to function normally but most of them have deserted the profession due to poor pay and deteriorating working conditions.

Analysts say a year-long strike by teachers over salaries and working conditions had accelerated the collapse of the education system.

The teachers were demanding salaries in foreign currency of up to US$2 300.

Government recently presented a US$458 million budget to the donor community for the education sector, which Coltart said would cover six months.

The quality of education in the country has suffered a dramatic decline over the past nine years as teachers fled the effects of economic collapse by trekking to neighbouring South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, where working conditions and remuneration are more attractive.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Zimbabwe was counted among African countries with the highest literacy rate estimated at over 80% but educationists say the percentage has since plummeted due to poor education policies.

The Standard
8 March 2009
Written by Giyani “Titsha” Moyo of Bulawayo

HEARTY congratulations on being appointed Minister of Education Sport, Arts and Culture, arguably the most sensitive and vital after that of the Prime Minister.

The ministry is very important because the responsibility of educating our children and the nation building lies solely in your hands.

Forget about Ministry of Defence, we are not at war with anyone nor is there a possibility of any in the near future.
Forget about other ministries because without adequately educating our children, today we surely can forget about any responsible, learned workforce to take our country forward in the future.

Knowing you the way I do in your political and civil life — a fierce campaigner for civil and political rights, I’m confident that you shall face the challenges of your new job with the same aplomb, commitment, diligence and intelligence that characterized your previous elections into parliament.]

I write you this letter as a friend, parent, teacher and citizen of this great country which, you will agree with me, has been denigrated and adulterated by virtueless men and women with no conscience, sympathy, rationality and wisdom.

Since 1999, teaching students and general public the principle of democracy which opened the way of thinking of our people towards the alternative political thought analysis of constitutional reforms and sheer comparison of offers from competing rivals was the teachers’ crime.

They were viewed as the single most potent vehicle of multi-party democracy change orientation that saw the people, rightly or wrongly, rejecting the proposed new Constitution of Zimbabwe in the referendum of 2000.

The concept of democracy is innocent in the primary school curriculum in social studies existing only as as a subject called Rules and Laws as from Grade One! For adequately teaching that topic teachers were rewarded with poor conditions of service, non-existent salaries, systematic psychological torture and the violence that was waged on teachers resulting in the mass exodus to UK, US, SA. You will also have noted the numerous deaths and abject poverty levels bordering on extermination.

Teachers are among the most hungry, emaciated, poor, property-less, dirty, demotivated, denigrated, desolated, forlorn, and without supportive friends and relatives yet we are so full of sacrifice each time we stand among our students.

The ministry of education has had the most lacklustre ministers from car thieves (the Willowgate Scandal), exam leakers and clueless village heads combined with ministers of public service who were more often vindictive against teachers than they care to be remembered as having been change agents.

I know it all. I lived through it and I felt it. In this new era of openness I have the guts to say it now.
Zimpapers have no moral right to lecture teachers on the new dimensions for education as shown by some of their recent writings. They were accomplices in the oppression of teachers and education, as if being wordsmiths gave them the ultimate intellectual superiority over all to sermonize on education as a priority of the new government!

You now have a perfect opportunity to rewrite the script and usher in a change we all can believe in.

There is a need for an all-encompassing Education Indaba — but this should not be compromised by over-fed and spoilt chefs of Harare’s office corridors, who falsely claim a monopoly of solutions to every problem.

As the new minister, you will also need to engage the parents in the townships and in the rural areas. Education has reverted back to be a preserve for the rich.

Why should there always be calls for teachers to be patriotic during the worst of problems nationally as if they eat patriotism? Theirs is a profession where there is nothing to steal for re-sale in order that they survive by putting food on their tables.

I hear there are attempts to woo back those of us who fled, migrated or submitted to cowardice and chose a “safe” life away from this madness we went through? What of the heroes who braved it all and sacrificed to remain behind, do you fail to reward them with a real “thank- you- Maqhawe”?

Real change is what we stayed home to shape, not arrogance and impudence.

I will have failed to congratulate you adequately if I concluded this without mentioning that I intend to mobilize all parents of children attending school in our great country into an institution that will hold you accountable in the delivery of education to our children.
This will be unprecedented but I’m sure you obviously are very passionate about social justice.

Only then will democracy have triumphed and national healing achieved when the education field is levelled for all children without regard to socio-economic background.

New Zimbabwe.com
6 March 2009

EDUCATION Minister David Coltart announced a new school fees structure for public schools on Thursday which will see poorer students pay less or nothing.

Pupils enrolled in primary schools in affluent suburbs will pay up to US$150 per term, with their counterparts in high density suburbs paying US$20. Rural schools will not charge fees, the minister announced.

Coltart said a means test was in place to help parants or guardians of vulnerable children and orphans who cannot pay the designated fees. School heads will determine if such children qualify for State support.

“No child who is the subject of such an application for State assistance is to be excluded from school whilst the application is being considered,” said Coltart, who is also the Senator for Khumalo.

Coltart said secondary schools in low density areas will be allowed to charge up to US$200 per term for Forms 1-4 enrolments, and US$280 for Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth enrolments. Their poorer counterparts in high density urban zones US$100 and US$180 respectively. Foreign students will pay US$600 in both instances.

Students in rural areas will pay US$50 for Forms 1 to 4 and US$80 for Advanced Level per term. Foreign students are to pay US$200.

Coltart said: “It should be stressed that these fees have been arrived at bearing in mind the current actual costs involved in purchasing teaching and learning materials.

“It is hoped that cost savings may be made in future which will then enable the government to consider reducing fees. Whilst the government is committed to providing affordable education for all our children, we have been left with no option at this juncture but to charge these fees to return our schools to basic viability.”

The government recently struck a deal with teachers to end a year-long job boycott after undertaking to pay their salaries in United States dollars — a response to rampant inflation which is the highest in the world.

With most schools opening last week and this week, Coltart also announced examination fees from Grace 7 to A’ Level.

Primary school pupils in low-density areas will be required to pay US$15 for their Grade 7 examinations whereas those in high-density and rural areas will not pay.

Ordinary Level examinations will be US$15 per subject, fees for oral examinations will be US$10 per subject and fees for science and practical subjects will be US$10 per subject, Coltart said.

The minister said his statement did not cover fees charged by private schools, including trust and mission schools.

“I am aware of some concerns relating to non-government schools and these are in the process of being addressed,’’ he said.

Herald
6 March 2009

The government has announced tuition fees in government schools for the first and second terms together with ZIMSEC examination fees for 2009.

The government has announced tuition fees in government schools for the first and second terms together with ZIMSEC examination fees for 2009.

In a statement, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart said the fees have been arrived at bearing in mind the current actual costs involved in purchasing teaching and learning materials.

Pupils attending low density primary schools are required to pay US$150 per term, while those in high-density suburbs pay US$20 per term.

Primary education will be free for pupils in rural areas, whereas those from outside Zimbabwe will pay US$300 per term in any part of the country.

Students doing Forms 1 up to 4 in low-density areas will pay US$200 per term.

Zimbabwean students doing Forms 5 to 6 will be required to pay US$280 per term, while those from outside Zimbabwe will pay US$600 per term.

Secondary schools in high-density urban areas will charge US$100 per term for Forms 1 to 4, and US$180 for Advanced Levels.

A’ Level students from outside the country will fork out US$600 per term.

Students in rural areas will pay US$50 for Forms 1 to 4 and US$80 for Advanced Level per term, while those from outside Zimbabwe will pay US$200.

The examination fee structure is as follows.

Primary school pupils in low-density areas will be required to pay US$15 for their Grade 7 examinations whereas those in high-density and rural areas will not pay for their Grade 7 exams.

Pupils from outside Zimbabwe will pay US$15 for their Grade 7 exams.

Ordinary Level exams will be US$15 per subject, fees for oral exams will be US$10 per subject and fees for science and practical subjects will be US$10 per subject.

O’ Level students from outside Zimbabwe are required to pay US$30 per subject, US$10 for each oral exam and US$10 for each science or practical subject.

A’ Level exam fees are US$30 per subject, US$15 for each oral exam and US$15 for a science or practical subject.

Students from outside the country will fork out US$50 exam fees per subject, US$15 for each oral exam and US$15 for a science or practical subject.

Senator Coltart said the question of fees charged by non-governmental, Trust and Mission schools is still being looked into.