Zimbabwean
By Brenna Matendere
18 June 2011
Education Minister David Coltart says his efforts to persuade the donor community to pay teachers’ salaries has hit a brick wall and members of the education sector should be patient and wait for a solution from government.
Coltart said this after a tour of Midlands schools held to assess progress made on the Education Transition Fund in which three million textbooks were distributed country wide. The project was sponsored by Unicef.
He said the donors had made it clear they could not foot the teachers’ wage bill though they were keen to fund other projects aimed at improving the education system.
Meanwhile, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe has warned that if government does not increase salaries of its members by June 21, they will down tools.
Teachers and officials in the education sector, like other civil servants, earn between $180 and $250 a month. They are pushing for a minimum salary above the poverty datum line pegged at $502.
“I personally admit that the salaries of teachers at the moment are below standard and my colleagues in cabinet share that view. But we should not raise expectations by saying donors will help because they say its government’s baby,†said Coltart.
“The review of teachers’ salaries is still under deliberation in cabinet and as soon as a deal is struck, we will advise accordingly,†he added.
“We inherited a collapsed education sector in 2009 but a lot has been done now and teachers should bear that in mind because we are doing everything possible to address the issue,†he said.
Calls for the minister to persuade the donor community to fund the education system came as teachers pointed out that if Global Fund could foot allowances’ costs for nurses, the same could happen to them.