Mutambara set to pick Coltart for Education Minister

Mutambara set to pick Coltart for Education Minister

REFORMS: David Coltart set to be named Education Minister by Arthur Mutambara this week

CHAOS: Pupils turned away from schools due to a teachers' strike

• Children suffer as schools stay closed

• Pupils turned away as most schools fail to open

• UK charity warns 'generation at risk' in Zimbabwe schools chaos

• Teachers strike, demand to be paid in forex

• Strategies for reviving education system

• Zimbabwe delays school term by 2 weeks

• Teachers' union calls for exams to be scrapped

• 16 boys expelled from Cyrene for roasting school pigs

• Mugabe fails to pay promised salaries to teachers

• Teachers call of strike after massive wage hike

• Mugabe says 'good salaries' approved for civil servants

• Mugabe promises to address striking teachers' plight

By Lebo Nkatazo
Posted to the web: 09/02/2009 02:47:13
ARTHUR Mutambara has chosen Senator David Coltart (Khumalo) as the man to overhaul Zimbabwe’s education system, two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) sources said on Sunday.

As Education Minister, Coltart, 52, will play a central role in reforming Zimbabwe’s declining education system, with the urgent task of getting teachers to abandon work boycotts and ensuring schools which are still closed open.

Coltart, a respected lawyer and former MP for Bulawayo South, joined Mutambara’s MDC faction following a split from founding MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai in 2005.

Mutambara’s MDC will nominate three ministers and one deputy minister to the 31-member Cabinet which will be sworn-in on Friday, two days after Morgan Tsvangirai and Mutambara are sworn-in as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister respectively.

Coltart would be a high profile pick for Mutambara, who will also name Bulilima West MP Moses Mzila Ndlovu and the party’s secretary general Welshman Ncube to the cabinet.

Ncube could be handed the Industry and Commerce portfolio, with Mzila Ndlovu landing the Regional Integration and International Trade ministry, according to two officials who spoke to New Zimbabwe.com.

Tsvangirai will name 13 ministers and 6 deputy ministers before Friday’s swearing-in ceremony, and Mugabe is expected to name 15 ministers and 8 deputies in line with a power sharing agreement signed on September 15 last year.

Writing in South Africa’s Business Day newspaper, Dumisani Muleya, the news editor of the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper said “the quality of ministers and the policies they will generate will determine whether the government will be able to pluck Zimbabwe out of the deep hole it is in."

Mugabe, who will remain President, is set to include a number of his Zanu PF old guard officials in his list, raising doubts about the political will and operational capacity of the new cabinet to introduce much-needed political and economic reforms.

Zanu PF sources say Mugabe’s list of 15 ministers includes his close confidants and party strategists Emmerson Mnangagwa, Sydney Sekeramayi, Didymus Mutasa, Patrick Chinamasa, Nicholas Goche, Ignatius Chombo, Joseph Made, Olivia Muchena, John Nkomo, Kembo Mohadi, Obert Mpofu, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Paul Mangwana, Sithembiso Nyoni and Webster Shamu.

Coltart (second from left) with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (second from right), MDC-Mutambara vice president Gibson Sibanda (far right) and MDC-Tsvangirai official Sekai Holland on a visit to Germany last year

If confirmed, Coltart will take charge of an education system which charities and teachers’ unions warn needs radical transformation.

In a new report, the Save the Children charity says many teachers have little choice but to spend their time scraping together enough to survive rather than heading back to the classroom – two weeks after the new school term opened. Many are on strike, demanding their wages be paid in United States dollars.

At the end of 2008, only 20 percent of children were still attending school, down from 85 percent a year earlier, and that figure is likely to drop further, Save the Children warns.

The aid agency estimates that some 30,000 teachers dropped out of the education system by the end of 2008, a third of which are now living in South Africa.

Among the 70,000 left -- many of whom have little training -- morale is rock-bottom and desperate conditions are driving them to inflict corporal punishment and exploitation on their pupils, according to the charity.

"A generation is at risk of growing up without any education in Zimbabwe, and that will have catastrophic consequences for the country's recovery," said Rachel Pounds, the agency's Zimbabwe director.

The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) plans to assess how many schools are functioning in the coming days.

"If schools don't open, the fear is you'll see a lot more people crossing the border (into South Africa)," said Shantha Bloemen, UNICEF's spokesperson in Johannesburg.

JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com