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| author/source:Zim Online (SA) |
| published:Wed 28-Jul-2004 |
| posted on this site:Wed 28-Jul-2004 |
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| Article Type : News |
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Chegutu - Senior officers of the Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) want to stop recruiting graduates from the government's National Service Youth Training Programme (NSYTP), because the youths are failing to cope with their training courses, Zim Online has established. The Youth Training Programme was introduced by the government two years ago with the objective to inculcate discipline and patriotism in young people. The AFZ and other state institutions and departments, have been ordered to give first preference to youth trained under the programme when recruiting. Sources, who do not want to be named, told Zim Online that instructors stationed at AFZ's training school at Fyld Airforce base near Chegutu town, about 70km west of Harare, last week resolved to urge their commander, Perence Shiri, to ask the government to permit the airforce to stop this preferential recruitment.
According to the sources the AFZ senior officers and instructors are worried that the mass recruitment of under-qualified staff from the national youth service programme could in the long run hamper Zimbabwe's air defence capabilities. One senior instructor at Fyld said: "Graduates from the National Service Youth Training Programme are being dumped on us. There is no proper audit of their qualifications and most of the time we are finding that they cannot cope with the training requirements. Air defence is sophisticated and we are now afraid that the country's air defence will be compromised." The commander's office promised Zim Online that Shiri would respond to questions sent to him, but he had not done so by late last night.
Deputy National Youth Minister Shuvai Mahofa told Zim Online: "We have not received any complaints over the quality of our graduates from the AFZ or any other institution for that matter. In fact graduates from the national youth training are in high demand and are highly sought after because they are discplined and are competent." But instructors at AFZ's Fyld base confided to Zim Onlne that they were frustrated by the poor quality of students they were getting from the NSYTP. 'We are a highly specialised operation. It takes more than the right political orientation to grasp training in Air Defence Systems or radar systems for example," said one instructor, who did not want to be named. Zimbabwe's churches, civic and human rights groups accuse the NSYTP of brainwashing the youths and turning them into violent militias that terrorise the government's political opponents.
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