The South African
10 August 2012
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, addressed Zimbabweans in London on how they can help improve sport and education back home.
Senator David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, gave a keynote address at a gathering of disaporans at the Royal Over-seas League in London on Tuesday night.
Coltart spoke about the state of education in Zimbabwe and his vision of the role the Zimbabwean diaspora can play to reform this sector. This was followed by a panel discussion and a networking session.
The Senator highlighted the problems that have decimated Zimbabwe’s education, indicating that lack of priority in this sector from the inclusive government had undermined reform efforts including lack of critical support from the international community. He said his ministry created an Education Transitional Fund administered with the support of UNICEF which has assisted in providing essential textbooks to primary school children and has also been produced in seven ethnic languages. The Minister highlighted critical shortage of teachers and need for infrastructure rehabilitation to bring capacity and skills that are competitive globally.
Zimbabwe sent only seven athletes to this year’s Olympics. Coltart, who has been in London during the Olympics, said he had learnt lessons here on how successful countries are supporting and developing talented sportspeople, such as through Lottery funding.
He said his ministry was focused on supporting disadvantaged children to access quality education linked to sports.
He wants Diasporans who have acquired advanced educational skills abroad to impart their knowledge and ideas and called on them to assist in creating a professionals and skills database to tap into for best practice sharing of ideas.
The Minister set up conditions for two UK-based committees to be set up, one for sports and one for education, It was suggested that the existing committee set up to gather Olympics support could be extended to include sports in general.
The conditions Coltart set were that the committees should be nonpartisan, representative, inclusive and registered entities in the UK.
Members of the Diaspora who are interested in joining the committee and becoming trustees should email Josh at jmchigwangwa@hotmail.com or call him on 078 9710 5884.
Another public meeting will be held to formalise the committee.