Herald
15 June 2010
By a Special Correspondent
The education sector is widely acknowledged as the main success story of independent Zimbabwe, after peace and security.
The policies pursued post-independence in this sector represent a significant achievement that has generated the second highest literacy rate on the continent and a quality of graduates who are very much in demand in many parts of the region and the world.
This sector is now a target for destruction, with the apparent aim of obliterating this achievement, and turning the clock back on this important sector, with the resultant implications for current and future generations.
The minister, David Coltart, was put in place by the MDC and his leader, the Deputy Prime Minister, Professor Arthur Mutambara, has publicly acknowledged the value and importance of the post-independence educational system in his own personal development.
It seems unlikely, therefore, that it is party policy to destroy that same educational system.
However, that is on its way to happening if something does not change in the dysfunctional Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture.
The post-independence achievements in education were rooted in two related developments.
This was the result of the political will to put all children into school in 1980 and embark on intensive teacher training, and it was also the result of curriculum development and strengthening of the publishing industry that provides the books.
That sector is now being rapidly destroyed by a minister who works alone and does not consult with senior officials in his ministry.
A sector and industry that has been developed and strengthened over 30 years will be destroyed by the end of this year if he continues to operate as he is doing now.
As it is unlikely to be party policy of the MDC, then the minister either lacks knowledge of the industry as he often acknowledges, being a lawyer, or else he is being influenced by other masters.
Perhaps, as a former Rhodesian policeman, he does not well understand this as he was a beneficiary of a pre-independence educational system based on race.
The minister has embarked on a multimillion-dollar tender process for school textbooks that is set to destroy the local publishing and printing industry built in the post-independent period over the past 30 years, which has thrived in a highly competitive, free market for textbooks published to meet the national curriculum and selected by schools themselves.
This provision and choice of quality textbooks has been at the heart of the success of the educational sector, and the local publishers face imminent shutdown due to the awarding of a tender by the minister solely to a 100 percent foreign (British/US)-owned publishing company.
He has been misleading Cabinet on the developments in his ministry.
He speaks of “one child, one book†but does not say that he will destroy the educational system and a vibrant local publishing industry and the entire distribution chain in the process.
He speaks of large sums of money coming in for this purpose but does not say that this will flow out of the country again without boosting local industry.
The minister, acting personally and without senior officials of the ministry, has colluded with Unicef to float a “print and supply†tender which was eventually awarded in secret and the contract signed in secret with Longman Zimbabwe, owned by Pearson/Maskew-Miller.
There has been no public announcement of the result to date, yet this was ostensibly a public tender.
Most of the books will be printed outside the country, with obvious damage to the local printing industry, which has been recovering and relies on the large volumes of print for educational textbooks.
Any benefits of this money that might have been expected for a much needed industrial boost will flow out of the country, in printing costs and publishing profits.
The only books in primary schools for core subjects for the next three years will be Longmans books, selected by the minister, and all books will contain a message from the minister, reaching every child in the country.
The educational titles developed by the local publishers in the post-independence will disappear from the market, leaving only the British multinational.
There will remain in future only one publisher in Zimbabwe, fully foreign-owned, with Longman having reclaimed its pre-independence role as sole the publisher of educational textbooks
This activity is funded by a consortium of donors from Europe, including the UK and Germany, who refuse to put their funds through Government due to illegal sanctions.
The amounts are huge — US$13 million for primary school textbooks and a further US$25 million for secondary school books.
This is called an “Educational Transition Fund†but under the circumstances, the question must be asked, transition from what to what?
Booksellers are also impacted, due to the takeover of book distribution (bizarrely) by Unicef, which is not a book distributor and has no related expertise. Any consultants hired to do this will turn to other things when the Unicef funds run out, having destroyed the existing distribution system.
Thus the entire chain of selection, publishing, printing and book distribution, built up into a vibrant industry in independent Zimbabwe, will be destroyed.
This has very serious implications for the economy as well as the social sector, with the effect of destroying 30 years of educational development since independence and starting over, from a baseline of 1980.
Education was the second of the national grievances over which the war of liberation was fought, after land, and these achievements in education helped to build and strengthen a development sector that has been the envy of the continent.