Radio VOP
Harare, September 13, 2009
The European Union has pledged to invest 90 million Euros in the Zimbabwean education sector.
This comes a day before another commitment to invest 70 million dollars in education through donor agencies by the United Nations Childrens Fund (Unicef).
Speaking at a press conference in the capital, Harare before leaving for Brussels, EU commissioner Karel de Gucht said the European block had always supported Zimbabweans after the regional union slapped President Robert Mugabe and his close allies with travel bans and assets freeze since 2002.
“The European Union has never stopped helping Zimbabwe between 2002 and 2009 roughly 600 million Euros have gone through humanitarian aid,” de Gucht said.
“We are now switching to more structural aid to what we call transitional aid, for education in 2009 alone we will invest 90 million Euros in Zimbabwe.”
Unicef through other donor agencies will tomorrow (Monday) launch a US 70 million dollar investment into the Zimbabwean education sector at Mutasa primary school in Mufakose, Harare at a event to be officiated by Minister of Education, David Coltart, Unicef said.
The EU delegation met with President Robert Mugabe and reiterated that EU sanctions on Zimbabwe will stay until there is progress in the implementation of the global political agreement. The delegation was also due to meet with the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Zanu PF and the two MDC formations have yet to agree on some outstanding issues which have stalled the unity government set up in February. Among other things the MDC want the reversal of the unilateral appointments by Mugabe of the Attorney General, Johannes Tomana and the Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.
Zimbabwe education sector once the best in the Southern Africa has been in the doldrums facing various challenges which include teachers strikes, shortages of textbooks and teaching materials.
Teachers have been leaving for neighbouring countries to teach or work as manual labourers for better salaries.
Learning has continued unhindered on most private owned schools while the majority of public schools have been hard hit as teachers left in droves due to lack of incentives.
The two main teachers union have sent conflicting statements on the strike which began when the term started in September. The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) called for a strike while the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe distanced their members from the job action.
Teachers are currently earning a salary of US 165 dollars like any other civil servant up from the flat salary of US 100 dollars introduced by the unity government.
The government has already announced that it doesn’t have the funds to increase the salaries of civil servants.