14 September 2009
Newsnet
The government of Zimbabwe in collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and international donor agencies have launched a US $ 70 million Education Transition Fund (ETF) which is expected to lessen resource constraints being faced by the local education sector.
The ETF was launched by Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, Senator David Coltart at Mutasa Primary School in Harare’s Highfield suburb and is aimed at restoring basic level education by providing teaching materials for needy schools.
Senator Coltart reiterated government’s commitment to revive the education sector and said the first priority under the fund will be to arrange for the printing of millions of textbooks to be distributed to several needy schools during the first term of 2010.
“The second priority is to address the shockingly poor ratios of textbooks to pupils. In many schools the only textbook is one held by the teacher. Accordingly the first task will be to arrange for the printing of millions of textbook to be distributed to several needy schools,†said minister Coltart.
UNICEF country representative Dr. Peter Salama whose organization has agreed to manage the fund together with government departments in the education sector said the fund is one of the many strategies being undertaken to overcome the challenges affecting the sector.
“This is just but one of the many challenges that needs to be addressed. We also have the issue of teacher salaries among other challenges,†the country representative said.
The launch of the Fund also coincided with the revival efforts by the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture and donor agencies in revitalising the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) facility with some resources having been mobilized towards the programme.