SCHOOLS open for the second term tomorrow. The education sector is slowly, but surely recovering from a decade of economic decay that resulted in massive brain drain. NewsDay Editor Constantine Chimakure (ND) last week spoke to Education minister David Coltart (DC) on the state of education in the country. Below are the excerpts.
ND: What is the state of primary and secondary education in the country?
DC: Although the state of primary and secondary education in Zimbabwe has greatly improved since the advent of the inclusive government and the sector has been stabilised, education remains in a state of crisis.
On the positive side there has been a steady growth in enrolments at primary and secondary level and objective data shows that access to education is improving.
The gender parity indices for the same years, ranging between 96 and 98, show marginal gender disparities overall. There has also been a significant improvement in the provision of learning materials and the textbook/pupil ratio in core subjects is now 1:1.
Whilst on the positive side enrolment has increased, provision of learning materials has improved the supply of qualified and competent teachers to all schools.
Objective data shows large disparities between schools in rural and urban areas with regard to the availability of qualified teachers. Learning outcomes, measured both through a recent sample-based learning assessment and public examinations, reveal a serious problem, particularly in the lower grades, where illiteracy rates are below expectations, which in turn cause learning achievement lags that persist, and worsen, as pupils progress through school.
Financing for education remains a serious problem with persistent low morale experienced by many teachers . . . Although in theory education remains a top priority of all three political parties in the inclusive government, in reality the investment in education remains way below what it should be.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
ND: What were the problems in education when you became minister?
DC: In 2008, the education sector virtually collapsed. It is estimated that in 2008 there were less than 30 full teaching days. Between 2007 and 2008 some 20 000 teachers left the profession. When I took office in February 2009 most of our 8 000 schools were not even open,
90 000 teachers were on strike, the Zimsec examinations which had been set the previous November had not even been marked and the textbook/pupil ratio was at best one to 15.
The headquarters building was in a complete state of disrepair with the lifts not working, all the toilets blocked and no water in the 18 story Ambassador House.
Ambassador House was emblematic of the entire (education) sector. Relations between teachers’ trade unions and the ministry were very poor. The curriculum was last comprehensively reviewed in 1986 and the recommendations of the Nziramzanga report had not even begun to be implemented.
It would take a book to explain in detail how most of these challenges have been addressed. Suffice it to say that four years on all our schools are now open. Last year we had the least interrupted education year in a decade, the textbook/pupil ratio is 1:1 and we are now starting to reform the curriculum and have commenced a programme to rehabilitate many of our schools.
The most important challenge to address in the beginning was to get teachers back into schools and to establish a rapport with the teaching profession. I started off with a series of meetings with the teacher trade unions and brought their leaders on to my national education advisory board. I ensured that the teacher trade unions were involved in the formulation of policy and, for example, were given an opportunity to have their say in the formulation of new education regulations.
I arranged for meetings between the Minister of Finance and trade union leaders so that they could understand the gravity of the financial crisis facing the Zimbabwean government. I also authorised the controversial policy of teacher incentives as I realised that government itself did not have the resources to pay teachers adequately. I stress that this was a policy which had already been implemented prior to me taking office and what I’ve tried to do is to refine the policy.
I also immediately engaged the donor community which in September 2009 established the education transition fund. Although government has picked up all of teachers official salaries, the bulk of the non-salary expenditure in the last four years has been paid for through the education transition fund. The fund has provided some 23 million textbooks and in the current phase two has embarked on a very ambitious programme of school grants (to be used to rehabilitate school infrastructure), curriculum review, teacher retraining, the establishment of an education management information system (a computer-based data collection system linking head office to or are provincial and district offices and ultimately all schools) and the teaching of out-of-school children.
ND: Tell us more about the sourcing of textbooks?
DC: In the last four years we have managed to source over 23 million textbooks for primary and secondary school children. All of these textbooks were sourced through the education transition fund from Zimbabwean publishing houses. All the books were printed within Sadc. Over three million children have benefited.
ND: To what extent did the teacher-brain drain affected our education and how many teachers are currently working in our schools?
DC: During the final years of economic turmoil prior to the establishment of the inclusive government, we lost approximately 20 000 teachers. Even more serious than the total was the fact that most of the teachers lost were our best qualified teachers, namely those qualified to teach maths and science.
The loss of these teachers has had the most serious impact on the quality of our education. Related to this has been the drift of qualified teachers from rural schools to urban schools which has resulted in a huge disparity for example in the Grade 7 results between rural and urban schools.
In 2009, I declared an amnesty and encouraged all teachers to return to work. That amnesty has been partially successful and we estimate that some 15 000 teachers have come back into the system. Sadly, however, many of our best qualified teachers remain outside of Zimbabwe as our conditions of service still do not match those available, for example, in South Africa. We now have approximately 106 000 teachers in our schools.
ND: What is the state of our schools in terms of infrastructure and learning materials?
DC: The state of the infrastructure on our schools remains very poor. In real terms the investment made by government in education has declined for the last two decades and this is primarily reflected in the crumbling state of most of our schools. There is also a serious shortage of classroom space, especially in Harare and Bulawayo, where many schools hot seat. In Harare we need at least another 30 more schools then we have.
Although the textbook/pupil ratio in core subjects is now good they remain very serious shortages of textbooks for ancillary subjects. ND: How can the issue of teachers’ remuneration resolved? DC: The issue of teachers’ remuneration can only be resolved when government recognises the teaching profession needs to be remunerated in line with the legal, medical, engineering and architectural professions. The countries in the world with the best education systems, such as Singapore, South Korea and Finland are also the countries where the teaching profession is one of the most revered professions. The teaching profession used to be one of the top professions in Zimbabwe 50 years ago, but is no longer respected. In other words, government has to resolve to pay teachers substantially more than they receive now and work must be done to improve the living conditions of teachers especially in rural areas where many teachers live in ramshackle houses without access to acceptable ablutions. Furthermore, teachers also need to be respected better by government and incidence of intimidation and violence directed against teachers must cease.
