Zimbabwean
By Staff Reporter
16 July 2010
HARARE — The government is set to reintroduce the basic education assistance module (BEAM) as part of a drive to put back in class thousands of children who have dropped out of school because of financial constraints.
The BEAM programme helps pay school fees and provide other support for children from poor families. The programme that is partly funded by donors was discontinued after the government ran out of cash following a 10-year recession.
Education Minister David Coltart said the government hopes to extend support to all children in need, adding that it would also look into the plight of teachers who like other civil servants have been pressing for more pay and better working conditions.
Coltart said: “My number one priority is to restore education for all and after that to restore the integrity of the teachers. It does not matter how many text books you have as long as morale is low among the teaching staff then they will not be any progress in restoring basic education.”
Zimbabwe’s education sector that was once revered as one of the best in Africa, is a shadow of its former self because of a severe economic crisis over the past decade that has seen government fail to pay market level salaries to teachers, maintain schools or provide learning materials such as chalks, textbooks and exercise books.
Thousands of children have dropped out of school because of hunger and lack of money for fees, while on the other hand many of Zimbabwe’s best trained teachers have left the country for foreign lands where salaries and living conditions are better
Teachers in Zimbabwe’s public schools earn an average US$236 monthly wage as the power-sharing government struggles to revive an economy battered by years of hyperinflation, lure back investors and pay its workers.
But Coltart, who has worked hard to revive education despite meagre resources available, said it was all not gloom and doom, saying his department with the help of donors was working hard to get education back on its feet again.
“We have started re-introducing basic education. Teachers are going back to school and education material is being distributed to schools.
Shortly we will be delivering textbooks that will see the student to textbook ratio (improving) and then we will move to refurbishing the toilets at schools which are in bad shape. Our initial target will be the sanitary conditions we want to ensure that every school is safe,†said Coltart.