PTUZ President Takavafira Zhou has provided the NASUWT with his analysis of the situation currently facing teachers in Zimbabwe.
The quest for sustainable development has become the pre-occupation of the global world with Quality Education for All being the slant of the Global 2030 Agenda. At a time when several countries are making clear cut benchmarks to achieve quality education for all, the education system in Zimbabwe is in the terminal ward.
With the naked discrimination and harassment of teachers and total lack of political will to invest in education, schools in Zimbabwe at best resemble deserts and at worst concentration camps.
New supervision instruments have been designed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education without consulting teachers. The Ministry has also introduced Teacher Professional Standards without engaging teachers, yet such standards are expected to establish the knowledge levels, skills and values expected from every teacher.
The supervision instruments and professional standards are executed by inspectors, who have become nothing but academic terrorist going to the extent of asking village heads and chiefs about professional standards of teachers. This baffles logic in light of the fact that teaching is a profession with knowledge packaged in theories and principles.
Above all, all teachers who had been granted vacation leave have been recalled after a few days into their approved leave. Worse still vacation leave in the education sector has been cancelled and a considerable number of teachers who have accumulated maximum vacation days cannot accumulate any more days.
Officials from the line Ministry (Permanent Secretary) as well as the Civil Service Commission (Deputy Minister) have publicly enunciated that they are crafting new regulations in which a teacher would go on vacation leave after 14 years.
They even deliberately abused the public media claiming the leave days for teachers were designed by colonialists who always wanted to go abroad for holidays, yet in reality a teacher only accrues 18 days a year whereas other civil servants like soldiers, police, nurses get as much as 45 days.
Zimbabwe with 4.3 million primary and secondary school students, 8.500 primary and secondary schools (and a deficit of 2.056 schools), about 120 000 teachers (17 000 of whom are ghost teachers, youth militias) has a deficit of more than 20 000 teachers.
There are schools with as many as 3.500 pupils per school and a teacher pupil ration of 1:100. Yet surprisingly the government has frozen all vacant posts, with a defective report claiming that most schools are over-staffed.
This artificial overstaffing has led to systematic targeting of Ptuz members for unlawful transfers from urban areas to remote Zanu pf stronghold areas as some form of punishment for the ‘crime’ of mere trade union activism.
There is no longer any replacement for teachers on maternity leave, with schools forced to distribute their load on other teachers. Sadly, there have been cases of pupils going for a term unattended.
Pay dates remain obscure for the better part of the month, while pension deductions and medical aid contributions are not remitted to the respective bodies, with the subsequent failure to access pension and medical assistance in times of need. The majority of teachers survive on vending as their salary is too low.
While other professionals like soldiers, police, nurses and doctors have been paid their 2015 bonuses, teachers have not.
The government had promised to pay teachers by 30 May, but with the current liquidity crisis in which many teachers failed to access their April pay because the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has not been allocating banks with some funds, the date has lapsed without payment.
It remains a mystery how the government would manage to meet its commitment, any time soon.
A new curriculum punctuated by patriotism has been designed and would be implemented with effect from 3 May 2016. In a manner reminiscent to Hitler’s youth, students will be forced to take an oath of allegiance to Zimbabwe, respect of the national flag and respect of those who fought in the liberation war.
While the above systematic targeting of teachers may be part of the cost-cutting austerity measures, it is clear that it is driven by lack of political will to invest in public education, cold and calculated education vandalism, and a deliberate attempt to totally erode the status of teachers for political expediency.
Not only are the measures desperate, careless and acidic, but they are also toxic, brutal and suicidal emanating from inefficient, ineffective, hopeless and bankrupt policy makers.
The measures are also a total violation of the national constitution (sections 51-56), as they are selectively applied on teachers and devoid of equality and human dignity.
To expect professionalism and quality education from a hungry, under resourced and overworked, weary, disillusioned, troubled and degraded teacher, is to envisage the impossible. There is also a false assumption that intelligence and wisdom reside with government policy makers and inspectors. Sadly, the government has always appointed hyenas to take care of goats and when goats are consumed, surprisingly wonder why.
An ill clothed and starving teacher who continues to do so much with so little is a model of revolutionary courage, heroism, resilience, vigilance, and commitment.
Yet there comes a time when that commitment must be rewarded, which time teachers feel is long overdue in Zimbabwe. It is within this framework that the teachers have called for the urgent establishment of a Professional Council of Teachers.
Ptuz has embarked on a media campaign for status restoration. We have formally requested for meetings with Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education officials, Vice Presidents, and the President of Zimbabwe.
The Vice Presidents and President have simply ignored our appeals. Every time we sign petitions to them, we have seen increased surveillance at our offices targeting both Ptuz leadership and membership.
There have been even threats to close some of our provincial offices and imaginary accusations of working in cohorts with opposition parties for regime change. While the Minister of Education is at times forthcoming, his simple answer to myriads of issues is that his hands are tied – a clear indication that he may not be the centre of several obnoxious measures in the Education system.
Ptuz has also lobbied parliamentarians for the improvement of salaries and conditions of service which has yielded very little. Teachers have also embarked on go-slow in an attempt to ensure that government leaves education to educationist and gives teaching back to teachers.
Ptuz launched an urgent chamber court application against cancellation of vacation leave which the courts ruled was not urgent and had to be filed otherwise. As such, the union has a case pending before the courts against the government on this unfair labour practice and monumental injustice.
The union has also several cases in the labour courts in defence of members arbitrarily transferred from their stations. The union has also launched low costs training of members on labour, human rights and gender issues, among many others.
Due to a high number of cases involving Ptuz members the union has employed two full time lawyers to deal with numerous cases before the labour courts while at the same time we entered an agreement with a well established law firm to handle cases before the High and Supreme courts. Union call for the government to give teachers land for farming and building houses has also been snubbed by government, as if teachers are second class citizens of Zimbabwe.
Consequently, it has become fashionable to find 12 teachers sharing a two bed roomed living quarters, which has an outside pit toilet – a situation which has seriously compromised quality education. After consulting parents, its membership and pupils in all the ten provinces and other critical stakeholders in the whole country, Ptuz has rejected the so called ‘national pledge’ in its entirety.
Notwithstanding the envisaged intentions to promote patriotism among the citizenry, it is a dogmatic infringement of human and children’s rights and, therefore, falls short of broad national and educational relevance, regional and international best practices. It remains to be seen how the government will inaugurate its undertaking in schools daily given the position taken by teachers, pupils, parents and other stakeholders to resist it by any means necessary.
By and large, the struggle to give teaching a more humane face in Zimbabwe and enhance quality education continues unabated.
Ptuz will continue to remind the government that it remains the biggest threat to the development of the education system in the country. We will continue to build and secure Ptuz as a democratic and free trade union, let alone call for corporate governance, viz, transparency, accountability and equity.
