Education in Zimbabwe
August 26th, 2009
Violet Gonda has had the Minister of Education in the Hot Seat in two interviews broadacst in the last two weeks. This is a transcript of the interviews, circulated by email by SW Radio Africa. You can email Violet with your comments and feedback.
Broadcast 14 August 2009
HOT SEAT: Education Minister and Khumalo Senator David Coltart was a guest on SW Radio Africa’s Hot Seat Programme. He tells interviewer Violet Gonda that his MDC party had to act against three rebel MPs who have been expelled for defying the party leadership. He also reveals why he believes Paul Themba Nyathi would have made “an outstanding Speaker of Parliament”.
Broadcast: 21 August 2009
VIOLET GONDA: On the Hot Seat programme we bring you the last segment of the interview with education minister David Coltart. Last week the minister gave us his thoughts on the in-fighting in his party, the issue of sanctions and the progress of the inclusive government. In this final part we take an in-depth look into the crisis in the education sector, and I started by asking the minister to give us an insight into the state of his ministry.
Interview: Broadcast 14 August 2009
VIOLET GONDA: Senator David Coltart, the Minister of Education, Sport, Art and Culture is my guest on the Hot Seat programme. In this two-part discussion the Minister talks about the crisis in the education sector, the in-fighting in his party and the progress of the coalition government. I started by asking Minister Coltart to give us his position on the issue of the targeted sanctions.
DAVID COLTART: Well our position is governed by the terms of the GPA. The GPA is very clear that sanctions should be lifted. However, and this is an important rider, you cannot look at any provision in the GPA in isolation, it has to be looked holistically and we have to look at it not just in the way it is implemented as to its letter but also as to its spirit and this is a real chicken and egg situation – which comes first and I think that we’ve got to see a couple of simultaneous acts taking place.
We have to see good faith being demonstrated by all parties so it is up to the combined MDC to call for sanctions to be uplifted but at the same time, Zanu-PF needs to demonstrate good faith – so the governors should be sworn in, Roy Bennett should be sworn in, these prosecutions that appear to be done in a partisan fashion need to stop. We need to have a more objective process in deciding who should be prosecuted. Let me stress that I’m a lawyer, I believe in the constitution, I believe in the rule of law, I believe that if someone has committed a crime that person should be prosecuted but the trouble is that these prosecutions smack of partisanship, smack of subjectivity and the point I’m simply making, is that our calls for sanctions to be uplifted must be matched by acts of good faith demonstrated by Zanu-PF. And that’s not just in terms of our inter-personal relationship, it doesn’t matter how much we call for sanctions to be uplifted, those sanctions, in whatever form they are will not be uplifted by the countries that have imposed them unless those countries themselves believe that the GPA is being implemented in its full spirit. We can have as many trips as we like to Europe and America but, if whilst we are calling for sanctions to be uplifted, members of parliament from the MDC are being arrested and prosecuted left right and centre, our cries are going to fall on deaf ears. So the GPA is clear – we have to call for the uplifting of sanctions but we have to see this holistically and everyone has to act in good faith for sanctions actually to be uplifted at the end of the day.
GONDA: There are reports saying that MDC officials, like yourself, advocated for smart sanctions and ZIDERA – the Zimbabwe Democracy Economic and Recovery Act. What can you say about this?
COLTART: Well first of all I challenge anyone who can show that I advocated that ZIDERA to be implemented, but that’s another issue. All I have said in the past is that where there are clear violations of human rights being perpetrated by certain people, the dictates of justice have demanded that there be justice and if there cannot be domestic justice then there has to be international justice. But that is past, we are now committed to this new dispensation with all its flaws and in terms of this new dispensation we believe that the country should be given a chance for this peaceful method of achieving a transition to work and part of that, part of the demonstration of good faith is that whatever targeted sanctions were imposed on individuals should be lifted, but it is a matter of common sense that unless we can all, Zanu-PF and the combined MDC demonstrate that everyone is acting in good faith, it doesn’t matter what we say, other people are not going to listen to us.
GONDA: And of course the Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara reportedly told a meeting of the Commercial Farmers Union that the two MDC formations have no power to stop continued abuses of power by Zanu-PF and that he said the parties have no control in the unity government. Now as a government minister, what have been your observations, do you agree with this and to what extent is this coalition government working?
COLTART: If you go back to what I wrote on about the 15 th of September last year when the Agreement was first signed, I said it then that it was an imperfect agreement, it is a flawed agreement, it’s a compromise agreement and inevitably when you have a flawed agreement like that, it remains flawed and it follows that I have always had the very low expectations. Now that sounds a very negative statement, I don’t have low expectations in the sense that I believe it’s going to fail, I have low expectations in the sense that this is a process and it’s a long, tedious process. But having said that, I’m not negative about where the process is at. My expectations are being met, I think that we’ve made considerable progress in terms of restoring the rule of law, in terms of bringing back respect to the people, in terms of stabilising the economy and opening up certain sectors but things haven’t changed overnight and that is especially so when we look at the situation prevailing on the farms. And I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, Arthur Mutambara that in many respects at this juncture we are powerless. We don’t have the Minister of Agriculture, we don’t have the Minister of Lands, we don’t hold the office of Attorney General, we don’t hold the office of the Minister of Justice and these are all the parties who could make a major difference when it comes to the land issue.
However it doesn’t end there. The GPA stipulates that there has to be a land audit, it’s very clear about that and that the land audit has to be conducted urgently and we’ve taken the GPA provisions in that regard a step further in STERP. STERP acknowledges that the land audit must happen and when that land audit happens as it must if the GPA is to be respected, I think it is going to reveal that there are multiple farm holdings, that there are vast tracts of land lying fallow and that there are other farmers, qualified farmers who have the ability to farm those fallow lands. We have the other imperative and that is to restore the economy, to get foreign exchange flows back into the country and all of these practical concerns combined with our obligations are joint obligations in terms of the GPA and are ultimately going to address the issues that we cannot address at present because we don’t hold those other offices.
But of course it doesn’t deal with the here and now, it doesn’t deal with the terrible things that have happened since February with on-going violation of the Agreement in that regard, but we mustn’t just take this snapshot, we have to see this as a process, as a progression. If we are still in the same position this time next year then I think we’ll have very serious concerns because then it will be demonstrable that there’s been no progression but I think that as a nation we have to wait for this land audit to take place and see what that yields.
Another crucial factor in this regard is the issue of governors. As we know from the history of the last ten years, the governors have largely and have often been those responsible for the coordination of the implementation of Zanu-PF’s land reform programme and I think that it’s going to be a very interesting exercise to see what happens in those provinces which have MDC governors, to see whether these abuses will continue. I think that they will slow down if not stop altogether.
GONDA: What about SADC’s role in this? We saw the Prime Minister travelling to South Africa to complain about some of these unresolved issues that you mentioned, but when are we going to see movement from SADC?
COLTART: That is a perennial concern. We as a nation have wanted SADC to deal with this problem a lot quicker and that goes back to March 2007 and even beyond that but once again we need to be realistic about this. SADC is not a homogenous body; there are different points of view within SADC. There are some countries that have not seen any problem whatsoever with what has happened in Zimbabwe because quite frankly what goes on in their country is arguably as bad if not worse and for any SADC leader it is not a matter of simply issuing a statement until one has built a consensus and I think that whilst that has been very frustrating for us as Zimbabweans we need to understand that we live in that context and we just have to deal with that. But I think that if we look back at what SADC has done in the last couple of years, whilst it has been tedious and slow, SADC has in fact averted a civil war, has averted even greater bloodshed in our country and SADC should be given credit for that. The fact that we have stabilised the country, that we have dollarised, the schools are open, the cholera has ended, that peace prevails in most of the country at present, not everywhere but most of the country.
And I need to stress Violet that I get just as frustrated by the slow progress as other people but I recognise that SADC has achieved quite a lot and we need to continue giving SADC a chance to deliver on our remaining concerns. I have a lot of faith in President Zuma. I’ve taken a lot of encouragement from things that he’s done in South Africa in terms of the appointment of his cabinet. It seems to me that he’s a very practical politician who knows what he’s doing and I think that he will act in a very deliberate manner in resolving these issues and we need to give him a chance to do so. I don’t believe that he is ignoring our plight. I think what he’s trying to do is to ensure that this Agreement remains on track.
GONDA: Can you give us an insight into the fights within your party where several MPs have been expelled?
COLTART: Well what I will say is that the in-fighting is unfortunate. It’s hard to put any gloss on it, no matter what the rights and wrongs are; the fact remains that the public sees us bickering and it does not create a favourable impression of our party. I don’t propose to go into the rights and wrongs in this interview. I hope that we can resolve our differences and keep our party on track. I think that all true democrats will agree in multi party democracy, that even small parties with different views have the right to have their views expressed, have a right to participate in governments through proportional representation and other democratic measures. And I think that if people look at the role of the MDC objectively, and I believe that history will prove this to be the case, without the MDC -M’s involvement in the last couple of years I don’t believe that we would have had the Global Political Agreement. I think that we had these two protagonists in Zanu-PF and the MDC -T and it was very difficult to bridge that gulf and it took the small MDC -M party to bridge that gulf and any people as you know Violet, have been critical of the role that we played but somebody had to play that bridging role and we played that role very effectively in the negotiating process. We were accused of wanting to go into bed with Zanu-PF and that we were going to join the Zanu-PF government – all of those allegations have been proved to be false. That was never our intention. Our intention was to try to achieve a non-violent settlement to this great trauma that our country was going through. And I believe that we have a an on-going role even now, even in this transitional government and so to that extent I don’t think that people should smirk and be happy about the internal wranglings going on in our party but should be concerned because we are pivotal to the success of this agreement and it’s important that we stabilise the party so that we can make a useful contribution to ensure that the GPA lives out its life, that we get a new democratic constitution in place and then we go to the electorate and let the electorate decide who they want to govern them.
GONDA: But it’s the leadership that is firing the MPs so can you really afford to be firing MPs since you only have ten?
COLTART: Of course we can’t afford, we’ve got very little political capitol to spend and it’s a very difficult decision that the party has to make. The problem is that this wasn’t of our creation. We didn’t send colleagues to go to Gaborone to speak to Lovemore Moyo ( MDC -T Speaker of Parliament), it wasn’t our doing. We have not asked for our members to be attending political meetings with members of other political parties damning our leadership. To that extent I’m sympathetic to our leadership. Bear in mind that I’m not in the leadership. As you know, I on principle didn’t go to either congress in 2006 because I was so concerned about the split of the old united MDC so I’m not in the leadership of the MDC -M but I’m sympathetic towards them. In many respects I believe they are between a rock and a hard place. We clearly have a cancer within our party and when you have cancer you have two choices – either you just don’t operate and let it spread throughout the whole body and it will kill you ultimately or you try and deal with the cancer and root out that cancer. It can still kill you after you have rooted out that cancer but at least you have a chance of survival.
Now my hope, having used that terminology, is that and I need to stress that I don’t refer to my colleagues like Abedinico Bhebhe as cancerous growths, these are people I have worked with, they are colleagues who I’ve had a great respect for in the past but some of their actions have been very damaging to the party. I hope that we can still encourage them to remain within the party but I think they need to make an election. We have leaders who were elected in a congress that they attended and voted at themselves, ironically which I didn’t attend or vote at and it is not time yet for our new congress and that leadership should be respected, that democratic process should be respected. If they believe that our party has deviated so fundamentally from our founding principles well then they have a democratic right to resign and join another political party and that is what they should do. But as long as they want to remain within the party, the right thing to do is to fight for those issues within the party, not to go publicly, not to side with people from other political parties in criticising our party but to conduct a vigorous constructive critical debate within the party to ensure that those issues are addressed.
GONDA: And of course you said just a short while ago that many had said that your party was in bed with Zanu-PF and that has been proved to be false, but has it really because you have your own colleagues like Job Sikhala saying that he is now trying to rescue the party from being auctioned off to Mugabe and Zanu-PF and that the party has lost direction under the leadership of Professor Mutambara, and just a few days ago, Sikhala claimed he’s the new president of the MDC . What can you say about this?
COLTART: Well Job Sikhala is one of my oldest friends in parliament. We were elected together in 2000 and I’ve always enjoyed his very colourful contributions to debate in parliament and this is a continuation of that tradition. He’s a very colourful politician but once again one needs to be grounded in reality. The fact of the matter is that he hasn’t been elected in any congress; he has no more right to declare himself as President of the MDC than I have to declare myself President of Zimbabwe. He has a democratic right to express his views but if he doesn’t like the party and where it is headed, well he has two choices. He should either conduct a vigorous, constructive, critical debate as I say within the party and try to get those issues resolved or he should resign and join another political party. Now I too have concerns about the way our party is run as I have concerns from the outside looking in to Zanu-PF and the MDC -T, but so long as a political party is made up of fallible human beings there will be problems associated with political parties. Ours is not a perfect political party but the correct thing to do is to work, it’s a bit like a family – you’re part of the family, you work as hard as you can within that family to correct the mistakes that have been made and clearly we have all made mistakes within the MDC -M as have people in other political parties. But until one has made that election, or that decision rather that ones efforts are not going to bear fruit, you’ve got to fight within. When you get to that position of deciding that you can’t go any further, well then your democratic right is to resign and join another political party.
GONDA: And you mentioned MP Abedinico Bhebhe we spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and he’s saying that he’s being victimised by the leadership because he was one of those MPs from the party who refused to go along to endorse the Zanu-PF candidate for Speaker of Parliament because the person was not the people’s choice.
COLTART: Well I think once again one needs to go back to the facts of the matter. This so-called Zanu-PF person for Speaker was none other than Paul Themba Nyathi. Now those of us within Zimbabwe who know Paul Themba Nyathi know that if there was ever a genuine democrat, a person genuinely committed to transparency and respect for human rights it is Paul Themba Nyathi. His track record speaks for itself, going back to Zimbabwe Project and all the work he did in the rehabilitation of ex-combatants and all of those people including Abedinico Bhebhe who know Paul well, know that he is a man of absolute integrity who would have made an outstanding speaker and by resolution in the MDC -M, not with Zanu-PF, we resolved that that person would be our candidate for Speaker. I’m not going to cast any aspersions against my other friend Lovemore Moyo but my own subjective view is that Paul Themba Nyathi would have made a better Speaker. Forget about any subjective considerations, think about this – had Paul been elected Speaker by choice, Lovemore Moyo would have retained his seat in Matobo. There would be no need for a potentially damaging by-election in Matobo, no need for the resurgence of violence and so I think that was has happened is that people have twisted the facts , they’ve distorted the history of this matter, they’ve tried to paint Paul Themba Nyathi as some devil and not recognising the quality of the man. And the fact that Zanu-PF were prepared to back Paul Themba Nyathi last year should not be seen as some negative thing, I think it should be seen as a very constructive development that they too recognised the need for someone who was going to settle parliament down, take us through this very difficult transition in an orderly fashion which I have no doubt that Paul Themba Nyathi would have done.
GONDA: We talked a bit about the election of leaders and you said you were not at the congress, but what are your thoughts on how your leaders have been chosen in the last few years, especially Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara as some reports say he was invited because Professor Welshman Ncube and others had accepted that no Ndebele person could ever lead Zimbabwe – and some are saying that if this is the case, then this is a fatal flaw left over from Zimbabwe’s history. What are your thoughts on this?
COLTART: Once again, people have got very selective memories. People conveniently forget that Arthur Mutambara for example was detained before Morgan Tsvangirai was detained way back in 1988 and in fact Morgan Tsvangirai was first detained when he protested about Arthur Mutambara’s detention. Those of us who recall the events of those years, of the late 1980s will recall that Arthur Mutambara was a strident student leader who demonstrated a great passion for his country and for human rights to be respected in Zimbabwe and he hasn’t changed. The fact that he went out of the country to further his education should not be held against him. In fact what is remarkable about Arthur Mutambara is that unlike so many people who have left the country, he was prepared to come back, face the music and put his shoulder to the wheel in terms of resuscitating Zimbabwe, so I just want to make this first point that I reject those people who say that Arthur Mutambara was parachuted into Zimbabwe, that he’s a political nonentity, people are simply disregarding history in that regard. Turning to another of your points and this notion of needing a Shona speaking person to lead the political party, well once again I stress I wasn’t at the congress, I wasn’t part of any of the discussions that brought Arthur Mutambara in so I don’t know whether that is true or not but let me say this, that once again we need to be rooted in the political reality of the country and there sadly are a few realities – let me take an easy one – one of the realities is that it would be entirely inappropriate to have a white person, so soon after independence run for the presidency of this country. Whilst that may seem a racist statement it is still too soon after the end of colonialism for this country to contemplate having a white ruler. That is just a political reality. And sadly, whilst it is not as strong a political reality as for example having a white leader, it remains a reality that the vast majority of Zimbabweans do not have Ndebele as their mother tongue and will gravitate towards a Shona speaking leader. That is a political reality that we simply cannot ignore and if that was the calculation, well it was a reasonable calculation but it wasn’t as if anyone was selected. Arthur Mutambara who had a long history of commitment to human rights and of courage was elected at a congress that was duly called, that people had the right to nominate others but he was elected by acclaim as part of a democratic, transparent process within that political party. And once again I just conclude by saying that that is a factual position, a political reality that people simply cannot ignore.
GONDA: How would you respond to people who say that Professor Mutambara talks like Robert Mugabe but walks like a reformer?
COLTART: Well Professor Mutambara ironically is criticised by all sides because he is very outspoken. As you may know, just last week in the Herald he was criticised for being too pro-west and on other occasions he is criticised because he is perceived as being anti-west. Now I don’t see how one can be a person who speaks like Robert Mugabe when the Herald as the government mouthpiece will say at the same time that he espouses views that are totally contradictory to what Robert Mugabe believes in. So once again I think that this generally comes from people who make subjective, partisan comments, who are not prepared to consider the truth and the factual reality. People who will perhaps take statements in isolation, out of context but who are not prepared to consider his statements in their full context and holistically. I think that when you look at Professor Mutambara’s comments regarding what the business community needs to do, his position on the Kariba Draft constitution, his position on land invasions you will see that he holds to positions that are completely at variance to what Robert Mugabe believes and speaks about. And so in essence those who allege that he is indistinguishable from Robert Mugabe are just ignoring the facts before them.
GONDA: What are the political parties or the political players thinking about Gibson Sibanda, your Deputy President, where is he now that he is no longer minister?
COLTART: Once again Gibson Sibanda is one of the politicians I respect the most in this country. I think that he is in many respects a father figure, not just within the MDC -M, within the MDC -T; I think he is deeply revered by many people and I think that his position is going to be rectified. I think that all people acknowledge especially in the context of this healing organ that he is pivotal to the success of that. I hope that that can be resolved through an MP standing aside to allow him to contest a seat so that he can take his rightful place in parliament and I look forward in the next few weeks to that issue being resolved. I think that we owe it to Gibson Sibanda to deal with this issue but I think as well that the time has come for the nation to realise that in Gibson Sibanda we literally have a national treasure. We have a rare politician who is not materialistic, he’s not corrupt, he’s the same person he was when he was the president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions over a decade ago and to that extent it is incumbent upon all of us, on Zanu-PF, on the MDC -T and on the MDC -M to ensure that we create a position for him to make what I have no doubt will be one of the most meaningful contributions to the peaceful transition we are going through.
GONDA: That was Minister David Coltart on the programme Hot Seat. Next week we look at the fact that teachers’ unions say there are too many centres of power in the Education Ministry and that important decisions made by Minister Coltart are being ignored or reversed by his Permanent Secretary or the Public Service Commission. To what extent is Mr Coltart in control of his ministry? We also discuss the issue of youth militia in schools and ghost workers on the payroll.
Second Interview HOT SEAT: Interview Minister David Coltart on the crisis in the education sector.
DAVID COLTART: Violet there’s no doubt that things have improved since February. When I took office on the 17th of February, most of the 7,000 government schools were closed, most of the 80,000 teachers were on strike, and examinations from last year hadn’t been marked.
We have now got most of the schools open, teachers are back at work, and the exams have been marked. But that’s a very superficial assessment because the education sector is still very fragile and could still unravel. As you know teachers are justly dissatisfied with the amount they are paid and the general conditions. The pupil-textbook ratio is still horrendous in most schools, the infrastructure of schools is in a shocking state and so we’ve got a lot of work to do still to achieve better substance regarding our education, in other words to move away from just the mere form of education to a qualitative substance.
GONDA: You say that the education sector is still very fragile, so on the issue of teachers, what improvements have you made to improve the lifestyle of teachers?
COLTART: There are a couple of improvements; obviously firstly the improvement that the transitional government has made in terms of paying teachers with money they can use, with money that doesn’t lose its value. That’s nothing to do with me, that’s part of the minister of finance’ work and the transitional government’s work in general. But secondly what I’ve done is – I’ve waived the requirement that teachers pay fees at government schools – that was a small perk for teachers. Thirdly I’ve tried to streamline the procedures involved in getting teachers back to work. There was a very cumbersome process that teachers had to go through if they wanted to come back to work. As you know some thousands of teachers left the service, left the profession in 2007 and 2008 and we wanted them back, it was a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare, so I’ve tried to smooth that; and then finally we have the ongoing problem that teachers who have been brutalised over the last few years, fear going back to their stations where they were threatened and of course some were even tortured and what I’ve done in that regard is issue a statement saying very clearly that schools are educational institutions, they should not be institutions used for political purposes and I’ve banned the use of schools for all people other than genuine educators and I hope that will in time, have the effect of relieving some of those fears of teachers, of creating a conducive environment for teachers to teach in and for children to learn in.
GONDA: But I’ve been talking to the teachers’ representatives like Raymond Majongwe and Takavafira Zhou from the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe and they complain that there’s not much movement that is taking place in the education sector and that the decisions that you would have made as the minister of education, the decisions that you would have made with them as the unions are actually being reversed by the permanent secretary Dr Steven Mahere and the PTUZ says it appears there are too many centres of power in the ministry, so to what extent are you in control?
COLTART: Well I’d say in response to that is that we need to recognise that this is a process of transition, that one doesn’t achieve one’s ultimate objectives overnight. I think that that is so regarding the Prime Minister and the transitional government in general and we’ve got to see whether there has been any meaningful improvement. I’m not satisfied where we are at present, as I said in my opening remarks, the education sector is still very fragile and in that description I include these sentiments expressed, these legitimate sentiments expressed in some respects by the teachers’ union but I need to state very clearly regarding the allegation against Dr Mahere; for example there have been problems regarding the implementation of the policy to cut out the red tape involved in getting teachers back into work but those obstacles have not been placed in our paths by Dr Mahere, in fact it has been the Public Services Commission that has been responsible for reversing some of the, or trying to reverse rather some of the policies that I have implemented so there’s a danger that one can blame Dr Mahere for all the problems when in fact he may not be to blame at all.
GONDA: You mentioned that it’s the Public Service Commission that has reversed some of the policies that you would have wanted to implement and you talked about the amnesty for teachers but why is that, shouldn’t the Public Services Commission be taking instructions from you especially on a matter that you would have said this is the way to go?
COLTART: Part of the problem is that of course the ministry of education doesn’t employ teachers, they are employed by the Public Services Commission and it is the Public Services Commission that sets out the conditions of service and to that extent my hands are tied. I can indicate my policy desires but ultimately it is the Public Services Commission that has to set the conditions. Now all that I wanted to achieve through the amnesty was to remove some of the requirements, for example we had regulations that stated that teachers who were in the service as recent as last year had to provide police clearance certificates and medical certificates and copies of all their examination results when we in the ministry knew that they were bone fide teachers and were people we would want back in the service. What the Public Services Commission has said is that we’ve got conditions that apply to all civil servants, not just teachers and there are regulations and laws in place that can’t just be waived so to a certain extent, this has resulted not so much from bad faith but from people looking at the strict legal interpretation of conditions of service and not seeking to change those rules quickly so that we can accommodate the teachers. Now those people advocating for that strict interpretation may be obstructive, I don’t know what is in their minds, but they may just be being legalistic and concerned that we comply with the law. But what I said to them is if we are in beach of policy or conditions of law, then we need to change that quickly in the national interest so that we can get these teachers back in. But in essence Violet what I’m saying is that one can’t automatically assume that the people who for example are saying that there must be medical certificates and there must be police clearance certificates are trying to frustrate the process. It may be that that is what they are doing, that that is their intention but we can’t say that for certain.
GONDA: But how are you going to resolve this situation especially on the issue of amnesty because according to the teachers’ unions they fear that this vetting system that the PSC is introducing may actually result in or see teachers being victimised along political lines?
COLTART: Well let me make one thing very clear, I’m not prepared to tolerate in any form the victimisation of teachers on partisan grounds. Teachers are professionals, they have rights like every other citizen, they have the right to associate with a trade union of their choice, they have the right to be a member of a political party of their choice so long as it complies with the laws of Zimbabwe and those rights must be respected. So I’m definitely in their corner in that regard and I will fight as hard as I can and if I come across any instances where teachers are being discriminated against because of their political beliefs I will use all the powers at my disposal to ensure that that doesn’t happen and they get back into the profession. We need teachers in the classroom and anyone who seeks to discriminate against teachers like that is actually acting in a treasonous and traitorous fashion. They are acting against the national interest, against the interests of Zimbabwean children and they should be exposed. What am I doing about it? Well I’ve recently written a long letter to my counterpart, the minister of the public service, Professor Mukonoweshuro expressing concern about what is going on and he’s replied to that and indicated in his reply that he’s directed his permanent secretary to work with my permanent secretary to resolve these issues and so I hope that that is going to resolve these issues, that this red tape will be removed and that we can get teachers back into the service as soon as possible.
GONDA: And you said earlier on that you’ve banned the use of people who are not teachers in schools but again I go back to the PTUZ who claim that the notorious youth militia are still being allowed to terrorise teachers and this is also in spite of a letter that you wrote yourself as the minister calling for the removal of the youths from the schools. What can you say about this?
COLTART: Well I go back Violet to the comment I made earlier, Rome wasn’t built in a day, this is a transitional government, and I think we must have realistic expectations for it not just in education but in other sectors as well. We are seeking to undo decades of Zanu-PF rule and Zanu-PF’s manner of ruling and you don’t change that manner of thinking overnight and I can issue as many statements as I like but it is inevitable that in certain areas there will be people who will want to disregard what I say but I think what we can say is that whilst this has happened in certain areas I believe in the vast majority of schools a peaceful environment, there is a peaceful environment today. Now as these reports come in and as they are substantiated I will deal with them and if needs be I will go to those schools myself and set out what the policy is and let me say this Violet, that my statement is simply a restatement of existing policy. There are existing policy documents going back to the early 1980s which make it quite clear that schools are not to be used for political purposes. So this isn’t a new MDC policy ironically it actually goes back as I say to the early 1980s. But if that doesn’t work then I will go to the extent of publishing statutory instruments to make it very clear that only authorised people are allowed on school grounds and if needs be, we’ll have penalties attached to those statutory instruments to ensure that there’s some form of sanction. But what I want to say to the teachers and to the teachers’ unions and parents and public in general is that this is a journey. I’ve got a very clear objective in mind, I’m very determined in my pursuit of that objective and ultimately I have no doubt that we will reach our destination, a destination is as I say is creating a conducive environment in which children can learn and be nourished and understand what their country is about and through that develop a deep sense of patriotism.
GONDA: And you know it’s not just the teachers who are complaining, we also receive statements from the Tsvangirai led MDC giving examples of places like in Mutasa Central where they say soldiers based at Mvumbunu Primary School are harassing and torturing innocent villagers and that they are doing this with the help of the youth militia who are based in the schools and who are sharing accommodation with teachers in that school. Some of the teachers have been forced to flee, so that’s why I’m just giving that as an example to show that it’s not just the teachers who are saying this. But the question I want to ask you on the issue of the militia is – what is going to be your policy on the issue of the Border Gezi trained teachers and how do you intend to integrate teachers who were trained at indoctrination?
COLTART: I think that the fundamental policy is that we all as Zimbabweans desire our children to be taught by the best qualified people and the one very satisfying thing about the recent survey done by my advisory board is that we still have a very high percentage of teachers who are fully qualified and I’d rather not get too bogged down on Border Gezi people, I would rather focus on this goal of ensuring that we aim towards achieving a goal of having 100% of our teachers fully qualified, 100% of our teachers having gone through tertiary institutions, our teacher training colleges so they are genuine teachers. So rather than conduct a witch hunt on the basis of Border Gezi militia I would rather conduct a survey to see what qualifications teachers have and to restate this goal that ultimately if teachers do not have qualifications, then they must get those qualifications in a certain period of time and if they aren’t bright enough or don’t work hard enough to get those qualifications, then they should be removed from the service. But that shouldn’t be based on whether they were Border Gezi people, there are also teachers out there who are not militia but who are not properly qualified and those people as well ultimately must be removed. But this has to be a progression. If I conduct a witch hunt overnight, I’m going to stir up a lot of trouble much of which maybe unnecessary. There are certainly some people who I’ve met, for example I have a person on our national education advisory board who was a militia who is now a trade union leader and he strikes me as being a reasonable person committed to education. There’s a real danger that we just paint everyone with the same brush and I don’t think that we can afford to do that. We need to judge each person on their own merits but as I say in the long term we need to ensure that we have the best qualified teachers teaching our children irrespective of their backgrounds.
GONDA: Are you able to tell us who it was that was militia, who’s now on your board?
COLTART: I don’t want to draw attention to him, I don’t think that that would be fair, but the other trade union leaders know who he is and he’s making a very constructive contribution to the advisory board.
GONDA: How long do you think it will take to resuscitate the education sector then?
COLTART: Violet we need to understand that the education sector has suffered several body blows in the last ten to 15 years. We haven’t been putting sufficient money into education for at least a decade, arguably two decades and until we start as a government deciding what our budgetary priorities are it’s going to take a long time to restore education. I’m not exaggerating when I say that just to stabilise the education sector will take over a billion US dollars and by stabilising, what I mean by that is just establishing a basic education for our children. We need 90 million US dollars alone just to get our textbook ratios back to reasonable levels. The infrastructure in most schools is in such a pitiful state that that is going to consume hundreds of millions of dollars and of course until we get that money in we can’t even talk of improving education. But let’s assume that I get that money in, there are then a variety of policies that I want to improve on and in some respects change. Our orientation has been very much towards academic education, there’s been very little vocational training and one of my frustrations as a parent has been that my children haven’t come out with practical skills at the end of their education. Yes they can speak English well and count well, but for example, they can’t speak an indigenous language fluently and that is a practical skill. For many children in rural areas they don’t have the practical skill of being able to grow crops as a result of their education. Another practical skill is that our children don’t have a deep rooted knowledge of the constitution, love and respect for human rights and democratic practices in our country and these are things that our education system needs to develop and that is going to take a long time even once we have stabilised the physical, what I term the physical infrastructure and environment of our education system. And I think it’s going to take arguably a generation to get the type of education system that I dream of, the education system that I have a vision for. But I think the short answer to your question is that with money, with adequate flows we can get our education system back to where it was say in 1999 within three to four years; I think we can get it back to that. But I want to go a lot further than that, I’m not satisfied where our education system was in 1999 and I think that that’s going to be a longer process.
GONDA: And what about the reintroduction of the Cambridge examinations?
COLTART: Violet ZIMSEC certainly ten years ago and up until a few years ago established an enviable reputation. It produced a qualification that was respected and accepted by universities throughout the world and I think as Zimbabweans we should be proud of what was achieved an. But of course only if it is cost effective and if the public’s confidence in ZIMSEC is restored. So at this stage I don’t want to talk about the reintroduction of Cambridge, what I will say about Cambridge is that we need to respect as a constitutional right the freedom of parents and children to choose which examination to write. That should be a fundamental right; the government shouldn’t interfere with that. But having said that I think that we should do all in our power to try to resuscitate, restore ZIMSEC, to give it a chance. But once again Violet, to do that is going to take a lot of money. Cambridge has a huge infrastructure that has been built up over decades and it costs a lot of money to run a credible institution like that and unless we as a government commit ourselves to apportioning a much greater amount of money from the national budget we’re not going to achieve that goal. We’ve got to cut back on defence spending, we’ve got to cut back on the size of government, of cabinet, we’ve got to cut back on some of the luxuries that the government enjoys, we’ve got to cut back on the size of the CIO and various other bodies and pour that money into education and of course into health as well.
GONDA: I was actually going to ask you a question about this issue of the money because you said sufficient money has not been put into the education system and I was going to ask that is it really about money or more about willpower and changing attitudes – because some would say you can put in as much money as you want into a system like this and if there are no checks and balances or if there’s no transparency it will be just a waste of money and nothing will really change and as you said, you’d really want to go back to a system that we had in the ‘80s. Now that’s 30 years ago, so is it really about money or also to do with changing attitudes?
COLTART: I think it’s both. In the short term it is definitely money, there isn’t money in Treasury at present to put education back on its feet. With the best will in the world, with all the transparency in the world at present there simply isn’t the money and that will only come when we get the wheels of industry turning and the flows of revenues into the Treasury. But you’re absolutely right, unless there’s a deep rooted will, political will, to spend that money correctly then you can throw as much money as you like to education but you’re not going to build a sustainable educational system that actually delivers. So I agree with you, we need to ensure for example the procurement of textbooks, in the development of the infrastructure of schools, that there’s transparency. We need to ensure that our training institutions are not subject to nepotism and partisanship, we need to ensure that teachers who get, or rather children who get good “A” levels are allowed to go on to teaching irrespective of their political backgrounds, their ethnic background, their racial background, their gender and so all of these factors combined need to be addressed if we are to achieve that goal of an excellent education for all Zimbabweans in the future.
GONDA: And of course we have a wealth of resources in our country but it appears that the government is relying too much on outside help. What are your views on this because we have diamonds, we have gold and we used to have the second biggest platinum reserves in the world, so how much is coming from these minerals and why aren’t we using that to help rebuild our country?
COLTART: Well we’ve got all this wealth sitting underground and all this wealth that resides in our people. Our greatest asset is not our mineral resources, it’s our people but we haven’t exploited that so all this wealth is lying dormant at present. It’s not as if our mines, our industries, our hotels are running at full capacity and that’s the first thing we’ve got to do, we’ve got to create a business environment that allows for foreign investment, which allows for Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to feel comfortable about coming back so that they can contribute their skills and their capital to rebuilding the country. But once we’ve done that then of course we have to build a democratic and transparent society that will ensure that the wealth generated by our highly productive mines doesn’t go into the hands of a corrupt elite and that is only going to happen when we have a strong democratic constitution, the fourth estate is vibrant and vigorous, when we have independent radio stations and television stations and independent daily newspapers exposing what politicians are getting up to. And as we know, corruption isn’t confined to Zimbabwe, corruption is found in every country in the world and it’s really only a strong constitution backed by a strong judiciary, backed by an independent prosecuting authority, backed by a strong media that exposes corruption and ensures that those responsible for it are brought to book and that is the only guarantor that a nation’s wealth will be used for the benefit of all its people.
GONDA: In your sector some have said that part of the problem is that money was being paid to people who are no longer working or who have left teaching or who are actually dead. Now what is the extent of ghost teachers on the payroll, have you been able to find out?
COLTART: I have not been able to find out yet to my satisfaction. I’m told by the permanent secretary that some 94,000 teachers were paid a salary or an allowance rather in February. The leaders of the trade unions believe that the numbers of teachers are far less than that. They believe that we don’t have anything more than 60,000 teachers. Unfortunately we have no computerised data base within the ministry of education, that was one of the things that shocked me and I’m trying to address that and I’ve approached the World Bank and the South Koreans and the Indians and others to try and help me get a computerised data base because my view is that only when I have that then I’m going to be able to have an accurate assessment of how many teachers we’ve got. But having said that, let me mention this to you, that the national education advisory board which I set up in March has conducted a sample survey in a 120 schools which only comprises 2% of schools in the country but that has yielded some surprising results. It’s revealed that we have a very high percentage still of trained teachers in our schools and that we have a very high percentage of teachers still at school. Now because it’s such a small sample I can’t rely on that too heavily but it is an interesting result which would appear to back that figure of 80,000 teachers rather than the trade union figure; but the short answer Violet is that none of us know at this stage, none of us can have confidence about how many ghost teachers there are out there. That will only happen I think when we’ve computerised the system and when we’ve conducted a more comprehensive survey regarding the situation on the ground.
GONDA: Before we go let’s discuss a bit about sporting matters since you are also the minister of sport. In February you were criticised in some quarters for saying that the New Zealand cricket team had an obligation to tour Zimbabwe and that you were prepared to travel to New Zealand to lobby the government there to allow the tour to take place. Some and I quote the ZWNEWS service actually said ‘this is putting the cart before the horse and that first there has yet to be any change in the economic and human rights conditions which lie behind the New Zealanders’ concerns over their tour.’ Your thoughts on this?
COLTART: Well going back to the New Zealand issue, if you look at my original statement, in that same statement I recognised that New Zealand had legitimate concerns, concerns that I share, concerns about allegations of corruption and allegations of racism in sport and I said in that statement that those legitimate concerns would have to be addressed. All I said to the New Zealanders was ‘give us a chance to address those concerns.’ The New Zealanders were not going to tour Zimbabwe immediately, I think they were due to come in July and my hope was that between February and July I would have been able to address some of those concerns; and in fact I believe that that has turned out to be correct. I now have engaged Zimbabwe Cricket; I am in possession of the ICC mandated audit report which I have studied. I have had a series of meetings with Zimbabwe Cricket and they have agreed with me that corruption should not be tolerated and racism and regionalism and those type of things should not be tolerated and I think that we’ve seen even recently in the Bangladesh tour, the appointment of Alistair Campbell and the clearly stated policy that those are going to be selected on merit, that these issues are starting to be addressed. And I come back to the point I made regarding education Violet, this is a transition. We are naïve if we think everything is going to change overnight, that all the problems are going to be addressed overnight, it is a process and that process applies to sport and I think that if one focuses on cricket there has been a material improvement since February. There was terrible discord between Zimbabwe Cricket and for example, former members of the board, people like David Ellman-Brown but last week he was given a lifetime award by Zimbabwe Cricket. That’s a progression and the same applies to other sports.
GONDA: You mentioned the ICC audit, is that ever going to be released to the public?
COLTART: Well I’m still involved in discussions with Zimbabwe Cricket regarding that report, I’ve read it, the condition set down by both the ICC I need to stress and Zimbabwe Cricket is that it should remain confidential. My own view is that the suspicions that the public have will linger until we are more transparent, until we make that report public and that is the line that I have taken with both the ICC and Zimbabwe Cricket. But once again Violet, this is a process. I’m involved in discussions with Zimbabwe Cricket in this regard and I hope that in due course there can be better transparency and that I can get the consent of both the ICC and Zimbabwe Cricket to release that report in the national interest.
GONDA: Education minister David Coltart speaking on the programme Hot Seat.
