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Address to National Education Advisory Board (NEAB) on report on the Rapid Assessment of Primary and Secondary Education
David Coltart, Minister of Education Sport and Culture
September 14, 2009

Read the report

I still have to digest the contents of this document. What I would like to do though is to go through a couple of the chapters and to give you some initial responses to what you've said from my perspective, stressing though, that what is important is that we take this report back to the Ministry. Within the Ministry we will collectively go through this report and build a consensus within the Ministry. It's no use recommendations being made, and accepted by me without the support of the Ministry. My role now must be to build a broad consensus within the Ministry so that we can move ahead together in implementing some of these recommendations. Of course the other issue thereafter, is to build a consensus within Cabinet, to make all three political parties, who are signatories to the transitional government, agree and buy into the recommendations.

Having made those preliminary points, let me just say regrettably, that I don't have a lot of time. I've got another meeting at four and I need to leave for that meeting at about ten to four, so I think I've got about fifteen minutes.

Dealing with Chapter 2 and the recommendations of page twenty-two, obviously Zimbabwe is lagging behind virtually every SADC country in the provision of free primary education. This must be a goal for us to achieve. The danger of implementing totally free education is that you remove any incentive for parents to get involved, and there's no doubt that if parents have a say they get engaged more in education. It seems to me that we've got to try to strike a balance in this regard.

The other comment that I would make in this regard is that of course in the short term, given the catastrophic state for the economy, it is highly unlikely that we are going to be able to provide free primary education in the short term. But clearly it is a goal that we must try to achieve, subject to that one reservation.

I was interested in the one recommendation that is not contained in the formal report that came from the gentleman from the front chair, regarding the Nziramasanga Commission report. My understanding is that several hundred copies of this report were produced and are gathering dust somewhere. I'm not sure where, but it seems to me that this should be published, made available to the public and that educationalists and the general public should be given the opportunity to debate that report. My understanding is that a lot of money was spent producing the report, and even if it is rubbish, which I doubt, it's important that we have a debate around it. Mr. Chairman, in this regard, my hope is that this will be widely published. I hope that you have some means of putting it on the web, at the very least, and I hope that we can have a public debate regarding this. I certainly intend taking copies of this report and sending a personal letter to the president and every other member of the Cabinet asking them to read it and to let me have their views. I think it would be very useful if the trade unions could do that as well. Parents, the school heads, lets have a much broader debate. I think it will improve the quality of the recommendations and the chances of them being implemented efficiently if we establish a wide national consensus.

Turning to Chapter 3 and the issue regarding teachers. This of course is one of my most important and pressing priorities. I note that the recommendation regarding a time frame to pay a salary above the poverty datum line. I've had numerous discussions with our colleagues in the trade unions in this regard. The problem that we face in setting out that timeline is that the Ministry of Finance itself has no accurate or reliable data on which to make forecasts. The Ministry of Finance has enjoyed a steady increase in public revenues through to July. In July revenues hit 98 million, only for them to fall back in August to just over 77 million. The Minister of Finance told us when we met with him, that based on his initial projections he was hoping that between July and August they would move from 98 to about 120 million, but instead of moving ahead they dropped. So it illustrates the difficulty that we face as a government during this very volatile transition period in terms of planning and giving undertaking to teachers regarding where their salaries are going.

There are wonderful ideas regarding housing, mortgage schemes and we really need to look at them very carefully. Just so that you know, we have already implemented provisions regarding the Amnesty; there are 1935 applications this year. Only 400 of those have been dealt with. We know the deadline and we are implementing measures to try and process those as quickly as possible. But we have major constraints. We have problems in terms of a lack of staff in head office. My poor Permanent Secretary of course in terms of law, is the only person who can ultimately sign off on these. He has the immense responsibility of ensuring that child molesters don't slip through the net. But clearly we have an obligation to try and improve that and deal with these quickly.

Turning to Chapter 4, I have one comment. Without any criticism Mr. Chairman it seem to me that inadequate attention has been paid to the issue of curriculum review and development. Perhaps I'm speaking out of ignorance because I haven't read it in detail but it does seem to me that one of the most pressing things that we have to do is to conduct a widespread curriculum review and further development. My understanding is that we last conducted an extensive curriculum review in 1983. If we think of the type of personal computer one could buy in 1983, compared to now we'll see just how much the world has changed. Sometimes we look at IT in isolation. We don't look at the impact of information technology on the teaching of every single subject. And yet our curriculum has not moved forward. In terms of recommendations, for the purposes of donor funding, I think a recommendation that appears not be there, is this urgent need for donor support for us to conduct extensive curriculum review and development. In my mind, that has a major role to play in the provision of a quality education for the future in Zimbabwe.

Turning to Chapter 5, I'm already thinking of the entire system that we have employed regarding fees and finance and that very much links in my view with this discussion regarding the role of SDCs and the role of parents generally. From what I have read and from what I have heard, it seems to me that the vast majority of parents throughout the country are alienated from this process of determining fees and it is still clouded in a lot of obscurity and possibly there's even deliberate actions taken to not involve parents in this decision-making process. I think a key challenge for us is to try to democratize the system of education at school level, whether primary education becomes free or not. I think the real challenge for us is to see how we can involve parents more in the running of their school no matter who pays for it. And a key stepping-stone to that is through a revision of this process of raising levies. And I think, not just in terms of narrow democratization, but also in terms of transparency and accountability. What I would like to see for example is the obligation placed on school heads and SDCs to publish their budgets in a public place in schools. We discussed this last week in the context of BEAM payments, and I suggested the idea that school heads be obliged to tell parents, by a public posting of an account regarding the amount of money the school has received in the BEAM payment and how that is going to be spent. This is something that I'm very keen on looking at. But I must stress that I want to look at all education statutory instruments. To conduct a very widespread review of statutory instruments and to come up with a comprehensive statutory instrument so we can treat that as some sort of educational bible. In terms of that I hope that we can democratize the whole process and address some of these issues.

Turning to Chapter 6, I note this issue that there are amore OVCs in secondary schools than in primary schools. One of the things that I think we need to refine in the coming months and years is this interaction between the existing BEAM program but also the development and what I hope will be the refining of the means test policy that was introduced in March this year. I see these as being complementary. I take note of the concern raised to try to localise the decision-making regarding who gets benefit in terms of the BEAM program. And that was one of the reasons I implemented the means test application. To try to get the local community more involved in determining who should get assistance and not.

On Chapter 7, I was interested to hear, regarding the need for centres of excellence and also to accommodate children with disabilities. I'm not going to bore you today regarding academies with centres of excellence but it's another area off the record that perhaps hasn't been focussed on. To explain to all of you, one of my deep concerns is that we have this huge gulf in our country now between government education on the one hand providing a basic education and private schools and mission schools providing a comprehensive quality education. Children can only go to those mission and private schools if they've got parents or guardians wealthy enough to pay for them. The real danger we have is that poor talented children who can only go to government schools to get a basic education are going to drown in the mediocrity of a basic education and the nation will lose those talents. We have to find some policy, develop some policy between those two extremes. Where we have government schools that can identify and nurture those disadvantaged, but never the less talented children.

Turning to Chapter 18, the promotion of libraries, and something that really struck me, the promotion of a reading culture. That Zimbabweans have been accused of not having a reading culture, and that they read for exams, not for pleasure. This comes back, Mr. Chairman, to the focus that Zimbabwe education has had for the past three decades even more on academic education. I believe and what I hope you will all consider, is whether the time has not come for us, not to throw academic education out but certainly to have a much greater orientation towards vocational training and practical skills. That of course, is a different issue to the promotion of a reading culture but what sparked my thinking in this regard was that I think we are in a bit of a rut in education at present in Zimbabwe. We've got a certain mold; I think we all need to engage in some lateral thinking. That is going to involve a shift towards vocational training but also to consider this issue of a reading culture. I would take it a step further. I believe that we need to promote a culture of enquiry, of questioning and of debate. I fear that what often goes into an education where you are taught by rote, is an unquestioning compliance with authority and what is given rather than an attitude that seeks to explore and challenge the society around us. I think that it may be one of the reasons why as a nation we've gotten into so much trouble. That leads to a further issue, and that is a need to achieve a balance between maintaining discipline in our schools, which has been one of the most important features of a Zimbabwean education, and is clearly something that we do not want to get rid of. And yet at the same time trying to balance that discipline with promoting kids that have more of an enquiring mind. And it is a balance, because if you go too far to the other extreme of promoting inquiring minds, you can breed a whole generation of unruly kids that have no respect for authority, and that leads to an unruly nation.

Turning to Appendix A, the need for clearer guidance of SDCs: I've touched on that and of course the issue of the role of parents. They need to be acknowledged. And I've put a big question mark here. What is the role of parents and in the future?

Turning to Appendix B and ZIMSEC, I note what you say regarding a loss of confidence in ZIMSEC and the question about how do we restore confidence in ZIMSEC. I need to stress very clearly to you all that the Ministry policy, and this is the policy of all three political parties to the GPA, is that we want to retain ZIMSEC. That is a national policy, and that is one that will be respected. There are no easy answers because parents are voting with their feet. Just speaking to the head of Prince Edward at lunch time, he was telling me that a substantial proportion of his best students have already chosen not to write ZIMSEC. That is not going to be an easy trend to reverse. But clearly we are going to need further advice from the advisory board and from you all about how we can try to stabilize ZIMSEC.

Appendix C, and the issue regarding remote rural schools. This brings me in conclusion to something that underpins many of the issues raised in this report and concerns and issues that I spoke very forcefully on this morning when we launched the education transition fund. The donor community has been exceptionally generous to the education sector. This morning we announced a fund of $30 million for the provision of textbooks, and at the same time announced $20 million for the rehabilitation of BEAM, and there are indications that there's going to be a further $20 million coming from the donor community. Which is a total of $70 million that will be put into the education sector.

My point made this morning was that whilst we are extremely grateful for that money, the challenge for government is to make education a priority yet again. I believe we are in danger of paying mere lip service to education. Much of what has been touched upon today is only going to be addressed if government decides to allocate the percentages that were obtained when Fay was Minister; that is of 22% of National Budget. It is only then that we are going to pay our teachers an adequate competitive salary. It is only then that we are going to be able to ensure the provision of textbooks. That we are going to ensure the rehabilitation of the physical infrastructure. And perhaps that is the dominant recommendation that needs to come from this. I have no doubt that if you conducted survey amongst parents, amongst Zimbabwean citizens about what is their number one priority in our nation; it is undoubtedly the provision of a quality education for their children. That has not been reflected in a succession of budgets in our nation. I believe that one of our roles must be to reinforce this view. Its no good if it just comes from me. I'm one person in Cabinet. I believe that we are going to have to mobilize entire communities to lobby their members of parliament countrywide so that there becomes a very broad national consensus, so that come November, we get close to those percentages that need to be obtained. There are many countries, I'm sure, that have an even higher percentage of their national budget allocated in real terms to education. And that's what we have to strive for together.

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