Sunday News
20 March 2010
By Lulu Brenda Harris
IT would not be right to remove teacher incentives at this stage and Government needs to prioritise education as the US$1 per student per year is a far cry from what the sector needs, a Cabinet minister has said.
The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, who is a member of the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC formation, was speaking at an MDC party rally in Bulawayo’s Barham Green suburb recently.
He said he was like a man walking on thin ice over the issue of incentives that parents have been forced to dole out to teachers.
Sen Coltart said as much as he hated incentives, he was aware that removing them would be reversing the progress made by both teachers and parents in resuscitating education.
The minister said teachers were earning paltry salaries and removing incentives would force most of them to abandon the profession.
Sen Coltart admitted that the issue of incentives was a problem of deep concern for parents and that the Government was not paying teachers enough, which was one of the causes of the country’s brain drain.
“Skilled personnel migrate to other countries where they can earn more. In South Africa a waitress earns more than a teacher here,†he said.
The education minister said he wanted people to understand that given the chance he would put a stop to incentives but the Government had no money to pay teachers.
“I want to end incentives. I need to end incentives but my problem is this if I end incentives, teachers will leave tomorrow and it would worsen education. Incentives will only end if we get money to pay teachers properly,†he said.
The minister said he could take the easy route as a politician that would make him popular with parents but the problem would be how to keep teachers in schools.
“As soon as I can get rid of them (incentives), I will end them, I don’t like them,†he said. Sen Coltart said the problem was that the Government had no money and it was of no use to tell teachers to stay when they earned peanuts.
“We need to find money to pay them. When I took office the policy of incentives was there to keep teachers in schools. Incentives are a problem they are very divisive between parents and teachers and discriminatory between rich and poor parents,†he said.
Sen Coltart said incentives were discriminatory in the teaching profession as well.
“Incentives are showing the difference between teachers based in rural and urban areas. Teachers in rural areas are less likely to get incentives from parents than teachers working in urban areas. The issue is a problem within the teaching profession as well,†he said.
The minister said the quality education system which existed over the last decade, had disappeared because education was no longer being given priority in the country.
“The big problem is that we as Government are not making education our priority. The education sector received US$276 million from the national budget. A total of US$240 million was for the payment of teachers and the remaining US$36 million was for educational programmes.
“I want you to calculate the money left versus the demands that have to be met. We have 3 million schoolchildren and eight thousand schools. If we divide that, each child gets a dollar. One dollar is not enough to meet a schoolchild’s demands. With a dollar you can’t buy learning materials for a single child, let alone repair toilets, classrooms and so on. I cannot educate children on a $1,†he said.
Minister Coltart said the message he passes on to his colleagues, whether it is in Cabinet or in party, was that if the country is to be serious in terms of its education, the politicians had to change their priorities in Government.
He said parents and other guardians place education, as their number one priority and it made sense for Government to follow suit.
“We have to remove money from other sectors and pour it to the education sector,†said Sen Coltart.
The minister said another answer in improving the education sector lay with the teaching professionals who imparted the knowledge to their students. He said if the teachers were not motivated there would be no quality education.
“The problem is that our teachers are not being paid enough. We need intelligent people and we have to reflect it in how teachers are paid,†he said.
The minister said the conditions of service of teachers were deplorable.
He illustrated his point through what he witnessed on a recent trip to Nkayi where he came face to face with the squalid living conditions of teachers.
“There were seven teachers, some of them married, living in one house. That is unacceptable,†he said.