SW Radio Africa
By Alex Bell
01 September 2009
Many schools across the country are expected to remain shut at the start of the new term this week, because of a nationwide teachers’ strike that is set to go ahead on Wednesday.
The start of the new school term has been in doubt after the country’s leading teacher’s union last week called for a mass strike over pay. Teachers now earn an average of US$155 per month after deductions, after an incremental adjustment earlier this year. However, teachers’ unions have rejected the amount, saying the government ‘imposed’ the salaries on them, rather than coming to an agreement with the education staff.
The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) last week said teachers did not want to continue to ‘live in abject poverty and perpetual debt’ caused by ballooning unpaid domestic utility bills and unaffordable costs of educating their children. The union said on Friday that teachers had been told not to report for work until government agrees to pay them US$300 a month and allowances of US$100. ZIMTA is reportedly also demanding a further US$100 monthly increment to see teachers earning US$500 in December.
A meeting between teachers’ union and education officials, which was hoped to avoid the mass action, reportedly failed to materialise on Monday. Finance Minister Tendai Biti instead said in an interview that the government does not have the kind of resources to meet the demands of all its civil servants. Minister Biti said the government was operating on limited cash resources with “little fiscus space†to manoeuvre. He appealed to all civil servants to be patient while the economy grew and tax revenues rose.
“Our main priority is to pay the civil servants and from the time we announced salaries for the civil service, about 70 percent or two-thirds of the budget has gone to pay our workers,†he said.
The call for patience is not a new one and teachers have previously withdrawn threats to down tools because of the government’s ‘empty coffers’ argument. But ZIMTA earlier this year warned that a mass strike would be a last resort by teachers, saying that the Education Ministry had until the end of July to produce a ‘progressive’ salary structure for state teachers. ZIMTA Acting Chief Executive Sifiso Ndlovu on Tuesday said the Ministry has not acted in good faith and has failed to draw up a reliable plan to award teachers’ patience.
“These excuses from the government are 11th hour excuses, and they are not good enough after months of patiently waiting for our concerns to be addressed,†Ndlovu said.
Ndlovu explained that ‘meaningful engagement’ with the Ministries of Education and Finance, in the absence of a long-term payment strategy, would help end the strike. But he insisted that teachers would not be returning to their posts until some form of assurance from the government was forthcoming.
Meanwhile, the smaller union, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), has said it will not be joining the strike, voicing fears over the recent dismissal of some striking doctors. Doctors, who were on strike for roughly three weeks, ended their mass action last week, but not before a number of state doctors were issued with letters of dismissal. PTUZ Secretary General Raymond Majongwe said in an interview that the union did not want to expose its members to the same action, adding that it was ‘irresponsible’ to forgo another school term.
Last year, students only received an estimated 26 days of full learning as a result of rampant teachers’ strikes, and disruption due to last year’s politically motivated violence. Concerns are now high that another lost year of education will further erode the country’s reputation as one of the most literate countries in Africa.