RadioVop
25 February 2009

HARARE, – Education Minister David Coltart has made a plea to teachers to go back to work amid reports that in Chimanimani a headman is turning away teachers who fled political violence as commercial banks are also failing to cash the USD 100 vouchers paid as allowances to all civil servants.

Headman Caleb Zimunda of Zimunda area in Chimanimani, was allegedly refusing to allow teachers to return, threatening them with fresh violence while many civil servants, including teachers, were on Wednesday stuck in winding queues at banks – which have run out of the needed foreign currency.

‘Since we returned to the school on the 12th of this month, the headman has been harassing us. One of the teachers who has been on the headman’s ‘wanted list’ was last week dragged at the headman’s village court and fined a goat for allegedly influencing the local villagers to vote for the MDC during the March harmonized elections,’ said a teacher at Sigmund primary school.

The teacher who has now left the school said he was now making efforts to transfer from the school.

‘Unless the safety of teachers is guaranteed, most teachers will not be able to go back to their schools in some rural areas as some Zanu PF supporters and chiefs are refusing to embrace the all inclusive government,’ said the teacher.

Coltart said an agreement had been reached with the Zimbabwe Teachers Association and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe to get all schools functioning again after protracted negotiations.

“We jointly expect all teachers to report for duty by the 2nd of March 2009 and that all the schools will be fully functional by 9th March 2009,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s teachers have been on strike since last year when they worked for an average 23 days only. Teachers resumed the strike this year, resulting in schools failing to open in January. They are demanding foreign currency salaries of no less than USD 2 300 among others. Grade Seven, O and A level examinations remain unmarked.

Coltart disclosed that his ministries and the two teachers’ unions agreed on seven points, chief among them that teachers that had been absent from duty due to the industrial action be granted given amnesty and that the March 2009 salaries and allowances would be agreed upon through negotiations in order to bring teachers’ salaries in line with the regional average.

However on Wednesday hordes of civil servants, including teachers, were stranded in the capital after failing to cash their USD 100 vouchers at most banks and building societies, which had run out of foreign currency. The vouchers are part of the civil servants’ allowances.

Coltart said it had been further agreed that the 2008 educational year would not be revisited, adding that ministry intended regularizing the 2009 calendar as soon as possible.

“In this regard, the 1st term and 2nd Term will end as originally advised. The 2nd Term will begin earlier on Tuesday 5 May instead of 12 May. The 3rd Term will begin 2 September instead of Tuesday 8 September,” he said.

Business Day
By Dumisani Muleya
25 February 2009

SOUTHERN African Development Community (SADC) finance ministers, including SA’s Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, will meet in Cape Town today to discuss Zimbabwe’s economic recovery plan amid news the country needs $1bn to pay vital obligations.

The summit, which comes a day ahead of the SADC council of ministers conference — also to be held in Cape Town tomorrow — is critical as it could inspire or undermine confidence in Zimbabwe’s new unity government.

Western countries and donors have said that they would wait to see if the new government was serious about tackling the country’ s economic malaise before providing aid. Some are sceptical the arrangement can work while President Robert Mugabe remains at the helm.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said the country needs at least $5bn to ensure recovery. Economic experts, however, suggest $10bn is needed for reconstruction.

Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed under Mugabe’s leadership, and policy failures have reduced the country to a failed state.

The economy, its agricultural base destroyed by violent land seizures, has experienced 10 years of negative growth. Its inflation rate is the world’s highest . Compounding efforts to rebuild the country, its infrastructure — roads, airports, railway networks, schools, hospitals and clinics, waterworks, power stations and bridges — is collapsing.

Official documents show that Zimbabwe needs more than $1bn to cover essential imports and overdue debts. Payments outstanding include bills for food, fuel, electricity, as well as debt to Equatorial Guinea for oil and financial aid.

Education Minister David Coltart said yesterday $438m was needed to stabilise the education sector.
“The ideal amount of money we need is $438m, and that is just for the first six months.

“Now in the current economic climate — and in the context of world recession — that is a completely unattainable figure. So we have to cut it. We are hoping to raise $80m.”

Coltart held marathon meetings with teachers’ union representatives in a bid to persuade teachers to end their strike and return to work by next month. Teachers, who were paid R1000 last week, have been on strike since last year.

Zimbabwe used to have the highest literacy rate in Africa, but literacy has plummeted throughout the drawn-out political and economic crisis.

Besides the SADC finance ministers’ summit and the SADC council of ministers conference, there is another crucial meeting today in which Zimbabwe will feature prominently. That meeting is between SA’s President Kgalema Motlanthe and United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who arrived in SA yesterday.

Motlanthe and Ban are expected to discuss the situation in Zimbabwe among other issues. They will also discuss the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Madagascar and the Middle East situation.

Other issues on their agenda include the Durban Review Conference on Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance , the global crisis, climate change and the reform of the UN .

The UN on Monday pledged to help Zimbabwe tackle its critical humanitarian crisis . The country faces chronic food shortages and a cholera epidemic.

The World Health Organisation last week said that 3759 people who had contracted the disease had died.

A total of 80250 cases had so far been reported.

A visiting UN team promised to deal with the humanitarian situation gripping the country after meeting Mugabe on Monday.

UN assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief co-ordinator Catherine Bragg said the world body would step up efforts to help Zimbabwe.

“We are focusing on cholera and any form of humanitarian assistance the UN can offer,” she said.
Bragg visited cholera treatment facilities to assess the situation.

She also met the ministers of labour, education, health, agriculture and foreign affairs.

The Standard
Tuesday, 24 February 2009

HARARE — Zimbabwe’s teachers have agreed to end a strike that emptied classrooms for a year, after the government promised to review salaries and appealed for 458 million dollars’ aid for schools, according to officials.
Schoolteachers have been on strike since early last year to demand payment in foreign currency to cope with Zimbabwe’s stunning hyperinflation that has left the local dollar worthless.

They only returned to work for brief periods during that time.

The new education minister David Coltart, who took office this month when the Movement for Democratic Change joined a unity government, has agreed to review their demands while seeking international aid.

Coltart told the state-run Herald newspaper he had asked UNICEF and other donors for 458 million US dollars (360 million euros) to jump-start the education system over the next six months.

Unions said teachers had agreed to return to work next week while the government tried to secure the financing.

“We have reached an agreement that teachers must go back to school on Monday, while outstanding specific issues are being addressed,” Tendai Chikoore, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association, told AFP.

“Government has committed itself to source funds to cater for our needs. We have agreed to go back to work solely on the goodwill shown by the government, but we are also demanding that our salaries must match what teachers are being paid in the region.”

Takavafira Zhou, president of the Progressive Teachers’ Union in Zimbabwe, said teachers have agreed to return to work. But they have asked that they be exempted from paying school fees for their children — unaffordable on their salaries.

Zhou said that the deal also ensured that teachers who did not report for work because of economic and political reasons would not be punished.

“We also agreed that after three months teachers’ salaries must be reviewed to meet regional standards of 15,000 South African rands a month.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that only 20 percent of students are attending classes, while almost all schools in rural areas are closed.–AFP

New Zimbabwe.com
By Tafadzwa G. Gidi
24 February 2009

FOR all the rhetoric and promises we hear from our politicians, business leaders and even individuals on the street about how much we need to change the status quo, when it comes down to it, no one really likes change.

Put simply, even when we know change is necessary and probably the only solution, we still would feel better if things could get better without changing anything in our lives. Such is the nature of the creature called homo sapien sapien!

Clearly, change was the overall theme of 2008. Thanks to Barack Obama, the world went change crazy. The new American President managed to articulate his vision for change and the ripple effects shaped the global debate so that all we could talk about was ‘change we can believe in’.

In some ways, his election is as much an embodiment of that change he preached for nearly two years on the campaign trail. However, Obama promised America and indeed the world, a lot more than just the election of the first non-white American president. The question that the next four years will answer for America is whether that change can become reality. The new commander in chief of the free world thinks ‘yes we can’.

In our own small way, the journey we started almost 10 years ago when Morgan Tsvangirai and others founded the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999 has this month gotten closer to completion.
Those few individuals had a vision to change our nation because the old ways had ceased to work and the nation needed a new direction. Today, the man who used to be the face of trade unionism and work boycotts has now become the Prime Minister of our country.

I understand the anxiety that has greeted the news about the formation of a unity government in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe has given us enough reason to doubt his word even when it is cast in stone and paraded on public forums.

However, everyone agrees that something must be and should be done to move us past this gridlock that has left ordinary Zimbabweans in the grips of poverty. And yet, when our political leaders decide to try something, we are all crying foul.

Obituaries have already been written even before the new power sharing governments gets down to work. Yet any objective onlooker would agree that the only way out of the mess was to at least try this government of national unity.

Basic maths dictates that doing nothing is not an option. If we do nothing, we have a zero percent chance of achieving success. By just agreeing to join the unity government, the opposition turned the odds to a 50-50 chance of success. This should be a cause for optimism rather than pessimism. We just moved from no hope to some hope and I would be damned if I did not at least feel some cheer about this 50% crack at bringing back Zimbabwe to the glory days.

It is easy to print doom and gloom stories all around the newspapers and blogs, but horror stories won’t build our country. Action will! Of course, we need to be pragmatic about the whole situation given our nation’s history. However, the past does not shape the future. What’s already done is done. What we do today, however, is what matters!

Shouldn’t we at least give ourselves a shot at success instead of resorting to endless rowing? If you will allow me to use an overused adage, is it not better to ‘go down fighting’ than to submit and just fade away quietly?

They said the unity government will not work and yet the signs we have seen so far are optimistic. After meeting with the new Prime Minister and David Coltart, the new Minister of Education, the teachers unions have instructed teachers to go back to work. The US$2,300 pay demands have been thrown out of the window. The unions believe “there is a new thinking at the top of the government”. Is this not change we should at least give a chance as the teachers have sensibly done?

We may have just witnessed a turn of the tide and didn’t even notice it because we were busy moaning. Many years down the road, we may look back on the day Tsangirai became Prime Minister as the day our nation began healing itself. That prospect alone is enough for me to give this unity government a try. It should be enough for you too.

Incidentally, homo sapien is Latin which means “wise human” or “knowing human”. You would be forgiven if you took this to mean that wise and knowledgeable creatures like ourselves would understand that we need to constantly evolve (i.e. change) and adapt to our changing circumstances if we are to stand a chance to survive long into the unforeseen future. Not so!

I hope as a nation we find the strength to go against our natural urges that incline us to resist change so that we as a nation can improve, adapt and continue to exist for generations on end.

Sunday Herald Sun
February 23, 2009

NEW Zealand Prime Minister John Key is prepared to intervene if needed to stop the country’s cricket team from touring Zimbabwe.
The Black Caps are scheduled to play three one-day internationals in the strife-torn African nation in July under the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) future tours programme.

The only way New Zealand Cricket (NZC) can avoid ICC sanctions is if Mr Key orders the team not to tour.

Zimbabwe’s new sports minister, David Coltart, said last week they were obliged to tour and he asked New Zealand to give the new Zimbabwe coalition government a chance.

Mr Key has previously stated his reluctance for the team to go and repeated that on TV One’s Breakfast programme today, saying there were genuine security risks and health risks for the players.

Asked if he was prepared to step in Mr Key said; “potentially, yes”.

`There are some options that I am working through at the moment.”

Political repression continues in Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe, who ran his country’s economy into the ground, remains in power albeit now in coalition with Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his party.

After almost 30 years of one-party rule by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, Zimbabwe’s economy has collapsed, with a widening cholera epidemic and spiralling prices.

Tinaro Herald
South Canterbury
Monday, 23 February 2009

IT’S a vexed question that has cropped up before, but this time an added variable is thrown in.
Should the Black Caps, our national cricket team, tour Zimbabwe, ravaged by cholera, AIDS, unemployment, rampant inflation and other ills that started on the watch of internationally vilified president Robert Mugabe?

It’s an issue that certainly polarised opinion in New Zealand in 2005, when late Green Party co-leader Rod Donald campaigned strongly against the team going, even bringing out former Zimbabwean test player Henry Olonga, who had fled the country after a protest against Mugabe’s regime, to push the cause.

In a World Cup match a couple of years earlier, Olonga and teammate Andy Flower now coaching the England side in a caretaker capacity in the West Indies had worn black armbands to protest the “death of democracy” in their homeland.

Then, as now, taking the decision not to tour off its own bat, so to speak, was too big a call for New Zealand Cricket to make. The game’s seemingly-blind-to-politics global controlling body, the International Cricket Council, imposes big fines for countries choosing not to undertake scheduled tours because of the obvious losses in revenue incurred by the host country.

Despite the obvious abhorrence of many New Zealanders for the Mugabe regime, NZC couldn’t be expected to make the call in 2005. The only way out of the tour without a huge financial loss would have been for the New Zealand government to say the team couldn’t go. NZC would have been spared the fines if the Government had made the call, but both Labour and National at the time opposed a bill introduced by Mr Donald to halt the tour, which went ahead.

Now, with the Black Caps set to play three matches there in July, Prime Minister John Key has indicated his willingness to order the team not to go, taking away from NZC boss Justin Vaughan a decision that could only go one way anyway if left to him.

Despite the traditional unwillingness of New Zealand governments to intervene in such a manner in matters sporting, few Kiwis would shed any tears at the cancellation of the trip. But this time round there is the strange situation of Zimbabwe having undergone a change of government of sorts, with a coalition agreement signed between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Sports Minister David Coltart, an MDC member, has said New Zealand is obliged to tour, to give the new government a chance, and may have a point. But there’s a widely held view the coalition agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. It’s a tough question and one Mr Key and his Government will have to get their heads around quickly. Good luck to them.

Sunday Argus
By Peta Thornycroft
22 February 2009

On the eve of Robert Mugabe’s 85th birthday he is still full of energy and cunning, a man whom profilers struggle to capture accurately, probably because he is much more shallow than most imagine. He is spiteful and, at 85, still feels he has to dye his hair.

There is another side to him – which he is using a lot these days as Morgan Tsvangirai, the new prime minister, moves around government buildings, holding 8am meetings on time, (which shocked slothful Zanu-PF ministers last week, who turned up 90 minutes late). He can turn on the charm.

He has to smile at his enemies last week because he hopes Tsvangirai, whom he has insulted continuously for 10 years, will save him from the terrible mess he has made of Zimbabwe.

He is not particularly well read and often fails to anticipate world trends, as he did when he woke up one morning and found that his comfort zone, the Berlin Wall, had crumbled and his chum, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceacesceau, had been shot.

He was comfortable with obedient, rigid societies. He learned his “conspiracy” vocabulary from people like Ceacesceau and slowly but surely created a one-party police state after he violently rid himself of Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union party.

Edgar Tekere, Zanu-PF’s former secretary-general, told a Dutch documentary maker in 2001 that watching Mugabe struggling with his university assignments in detention had put him off trying for a degree. Mugabe was an unimaginative plodder. His main talent is plotting. It’s all he does most of each week.

The plots aren’t clever. His Central Intelligence Organisation isn’t efficient at executing them. Most of them fail, although people get hurt as they unfold.

The ones that succeed against opponents only do so because he has bought off the judiciary, one by one with the exception of a couple in the higher courts.

The kidnapping of scores of Movement for Democratic Change activists ahead of the unity accord after the September power-sharing agreement was one such plot, to try to force Tsvangirai to pull out.

That agreement came because of Mugabe’s post-election plot after he discovered he had lost heavily to Tsvangirai. He turned to the generals to save him and they manipulated a five-week delay while they deployed hit squads to rural areas. Those killed and beat enough people to ensure they would not vote for Tsvangirai again in the runoff. Mugabe uses treason charges with dreary and predictable regularity. They never succeed, even in the corrupt courts.

It happened last week again, when Roy Bennett, a leading member of the MDC, was charged with treason – just like he was three years ago in a case that failed because of lack of evidence.

Mugabe needs to be surrounded by incompetent leaders who would never succeed in the private sector. Even though he acknowledges that they have failed, he needs their reverence and praise.

Mugabe’s appointments to his half of the power-sharing cabinet last week demon-strate just how much he needs the comfort zone of the old guard. His appointments, all old faithfuls, are a duplicate of Zimbabwe’s last “worst-ever” cabinet.

He is plotting now, in the first week of the unity government, to ensure that either he or his successor beats Tsvangirai in the next elections, which are less than two years away.

Many are worried there are two centres of power: the new government and the other, which meets Mugabe privately.

Although Mugabe needs Tsvangirai to rescue him, many fear Mugabe will do nothing beyond smiles and hand shakes.

He has demonstrated that he lusts after wealth. He has succeeded in accumulating assets locally and in Asia – and not because he made clever investments.

He certainly didn’t make enough out of his paltry salary to account for the Mugabe portfolio.

His birthday party will be a predictable day of praise songs and masses of food. This year he has chosen a part of the country where he will find pure devotion, near his home district, about 80km north of Harare, where he remains “father” to obedient, poorly educated rural people.

Mugabe’s constant theme is defending the “revolution”. The gains he made after independence were massively funded by the West and a brigade of dedicated technocrats who have all since abandoned him.

Once they began leaving, the rot set in. Long before he destroyed commercial agriculture, many schools had begun to fail. The University of Zimbabwe was already losing its best staff and students. Government agricultural research stations began disintegrating shortly after independence. He stamped on the co-operative movement and ensured that trade unions remained weak.

As the economy began to contract from over-regulation, and with unbudgeted payments to thousands more veterans than ever fought the liberation war, he had dwindling resources used to keep himself in power.

That was why he seized the white-owned farms. He had promised a group of white farmers near his rural home in July 1981, behind closed doors, that in public they would have a “rough ride”, but that they should never feel insecure.

He told them he wanted them to stay.

Of course he did. The wealth they earned funded most public revenue and earned foreign currency to pay for service delivery which, in turn, helped communal farmers become the major maize producers.

The war inside the country in the early days of independence was in the rural areas of Matabeleland. People nearer Harare either didn’t believe what was going on, didn’t know about it or didn’t care. Many thought Mugabe couldn’t possibly have known about it.

Yet prominent Catholics made sure he knew.

Human rights lawyers began to emerge. One, David Coltart, was sworn in as the education minister last week. He was messed around in the courts in the 1980s trying to defend people Mugabe saw as enemies, much as the human rights lawyers have been messed around since the MDC became the opposition.

This birthday party Mugabe really needs to show off – two weeks after Tsvangirai has learned from inside the chamber of horrors of the public service the extent of the disaster Mugabe has left him to fix. – Independent Foreign Service

Sunday Mail
22 February 2009
By Itai Mazire and Phyllis Kachere

GOVERNMENT will this week, through the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, engage UN development agencies and other international donors for funding to end the educational crisis in the country.

In a telephone interview with The Sunday Mail from Bulawayo, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, appealed to teachers through their unions to return to work tomorrow (Monday) while Government engages donors for salary funding.

“I will be meeting Unicef and UNDP (UN Development Programme) and other donors’ representatives to see how they can assist with funding for teachers’ salaries on Monday. We appeal to all the teachers, through their unions, to return to work for the benefit of our children and they allow us time to mobilise funds so that we can meet with their demands.

“The ministry will be meeting with representatives from Unicef and UNDP on Monday so that we raise funds for teachers and examination markers. We will also be meeting with leaders from the teachers’ union on Monday so that they can give us feedback from consultations they made with teachers and their structures,” said Sen Coltart.

He said there were three possible sources for funding for teachers’ salaries that included the fiscus, donors and parents.

“The Treasury is dry and the other options are donors and parents. But we know the majority of parents cannot afford high fees in foreign currency and that has to be taken into consideration.

“We are expecting to pay teachers a viable wage in line with regional trends, but that again depends on the availability of funds,” he said.

He said some unscrupulous teachers were capitalising on the desperation of parents by demanding unreasonable allowances and said that should end immediately.

Some parents have called for the dismissal of teachers who demand allowances from parents. At most former Group A schools, teachers have demanded allowances as high as US$1 000 from parents, a situation which Sen Coltart said was unacceptable as there should be uniformity in teachers’ salaries depending on their qualifications and grading.

Rural teachers had lost out while their urban counterparts had managed to fleece desperate urban parents who were forced to pay as much as US$10 per month to the teachers resulting in most teachers taking home around US$500.

Last week Sen Coltart met leaders from the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) and the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) to iron out teachers’ grievances and pleaded with them to end the strike that has been going on since last year.

The teachers’ unions called on the ministry to let teachers that have been absconding duties since January 2007 to be allowed to return to work without re-applying.

According to the Public Service Commission regulations, any teacher who resigns or simply absconds should wait for two years before re-applying or being re-admitted.

Although Sen Coltart is said to be in agreement with the calls for amnesty, he said his ministry had no jurisdiction over the matter, but would make recommendations to the Ministry of Public Service.

PTUZ secretary-general Raymond Majongwe hinted that teachers were likely to return to work to allow the inclusive government to raise funds for teachers’ salaries.

“There is a possibility we can give them the benefit of the doubt. We might concede, but on condition that the Government accepts to admit all teachers that left the profession due to economic hardships and political circumstances without any conditionalities,” said Mr Majongwe.

The union leaders also suggested that there be adjustments on the school calendar since some public schools had not opened for this term, which was scheduled to open on January 27.

The teachers’ unions were upbeat that amnesty to teachers would improve the situation in schools.

Zimta secretary-general Mr Richard Gundani said the amnesty would enable qualified teachers to return to work.

“We agreed that an amnesty should be granted to teachers who were displaced during elections or dismissed for failing to go to work because of economic challenges.

“The amnesty will cover those affected from January 2007 to date,” said Mr Gundani.

“We are encouraging our members to take advantage of this window which has been opened so that they come back,” he said.

Mr Gundani said an agreement was also reached on the slight adjustment of the school calendar.

“We agreed that the school calendar should be revised so that there are slight adjustments to school terms. We are hoping that the new calendar would be out next week.”

Mr Majongwe concurred.

“We agreed we must discuss around issues of normalising the school terms,” he said.

Meanwhile, the unions are calling on their members to accept the US$100 vouchers given by Government as a short-term measure to address challenges faced by teachers while negotiations are under way.

“We have agreed that teachers should take them (vouchers).

“We encourage teachers to go and get the vouchers and make sure they use the money. We appreciate what is being presented by Government, but we have our own concerns,” said Mr Majongwe.

The Standard
22nd February 2009
By Nqobani Ndlovu

BULAWAYO – The government will this week ask donors to provide US$80
million in emergency funds to pay teachers amid indications schools might
finally re-open after one of the longest job boycotts in the country’s
history.

Teachers have been on strike since last year demanding payment in
foreign currency.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) painted a grim picture of
the state of affairs saying about 94% of Zimbabwe’s rural schools, where
most children are educated, failed to open this year.

The new Minister of Education, Sport and Culture, David Coltart said
the new government had set the re-opening of schools and the revamping of
the education sector as one of its top priorities.

Tomorrow, he will meet some donors in a bid to resolve the impasse in
the education sector.

“I have organised a donors’ meeting on Monday where I will table an
emergency budget to bring back teachers to our schools,” Coltart said.

“The US $80 million emergency budget is for the next four to six
months and it’s primarily for salaries of teachers and markers.

“We will at the same meeting table a total budget of the amount of
funding that we require his year. We are still working on the figures.”

Zimbabwean requires more than 200 000 teachers to function normally
but most of them have deserted the profession due to poor pay and
deteriorating working conditions.

Representatives from the European Commission and other United Nations
agencies among other major donors with offices in the country would attend
the meeting.

Last month, then acting Minister of Education, Sport and Culture,
Aneas Chigwedere and the Permanent Secretary, Stephen Mahere invited the
wrath of teachers after they boycotted a meeting organised by donors to
address the crisis.

Coltart, who assumed office last week said Unicef had already made a
“huge” donation of exercise books that would be distributed within the next
three weeks.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Union (Zimta) and the Progressive Teachers Union
of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), who appear to have softened their stance after meeting
Coltart last week said they would consult their membership before commenting
on the way forward.

Raymond Majongwe, PTUZ boss had vowed that teachers would not go back
towork until their demands had been addressed.

They said a decision to return work could be taken after tommorow’s
meeting. But sources said most teachers were now keen to return to work
after government promised them salaries of US$100.

“At the moment, we can not give an official comment concerning our
position but our leaders in various provinces are currently holding
consultations with our members on the way forward,” said Oswald Madziva, the
PTUZ secretary general.

Paul Gundani, the Zimta secretary general Richard Gundani said Coltart
had pleaded with them to give government time to mobilise resource to pay
decent salaries.

The unions also want the government to revise the school calendar,
which officially began on January 27.

Coltart predicted that the sector once regarded as one of the best in
sub-Saharan Africa but has become a casualty of the country’s economic
collapse would take at least two years to recover.

The Senator for Kumalo in Bulawayo and also MDC-M secretary for legal
affairs said one of the measures the government would take to revive the
sector would be to send untrained teachers back for training.

These include graduates from the notorious Border Gezi training
programme who were given preferential access to civil service jobs.

Some of them, critics argue do not even have basic academic
requirements like Ordinary and Advanced Level qualifications.

Zanu-PF defended the programme saying it is meant to instil
patriotism, discipline and appreciation of Zimbabwean culture.

Entrepreneurial skills were supposed to be part of the national
service programme.

However, military training, denouncement of the opposition and ruling
party slogan chanting took up most of their training time.

“We will be reviewing the policy with regard to teachers who came from
Border Gezi training centres,” Coltart said.

“Those teachers are not properly trained. Our goal is that we should
have only qualified teachers at schools.

However, Coltart ruled out radical reforms such as re-introducing the
Cambridge examinations to replace those administered by the Zimbabwe School
Examinations Council (Zimsec).

He said Cambridge examinations would be too expensive to run.

Teacher unions say 2008 was a wasted academic year with final
examinations for primary, secondary, college and university almost failing
to take off because of chaos bedevilling the sector.

In the 1980’s to 1990’s, the country had the highest literacy rate in
Africa estimated at over 80%.

The Post
21st February 2009
By Simon Walter

The new power-sharing government in Zimbabwe wants Hampshire batsman Sean Ervine to represent his country again.

Ervine was one of the rebels that fell out with the Zimbabwe Cricket Union in 2004.

It is now five years since he left Zimbabwe, refusing to play for his country again after five Tests and 42 one-day internationals.

The 26-year-old plans to qualify for England but that process has been delayed as he did not fulfil the necessary residential criteria when he was first splitting his time between Western Australia and Southampton in 2005.

David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s new Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, has made it clear he wants Ervine playing for his country again.

“We have far too many talented players outside Zimbabwe that are not playing for the national team,” said Coltart.

“When I look at Sean Ervine’s average at Hampshire I say to myself ‘here is a guy who should be playing for us’.

“We need guys like that back. And we need someone like [England assistant coach] Andy Flower to come back and coach our national team.”