The Herald
By Felex Share
25 November 2009
Harare — Government has no money to pay teachers invigilating this year’s Ordinary and Advanced Level examinations and is urging the educators to make sacrifices for their students, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart said yesterday.
It also emerged that many schools in remote parts of the country might fail to engage any examination supervisors because they were manned by relief teachers, whose contracts expire on December 4, while examinations will run until December 18.
Addressing teachers in Harare yesterday, Minister Coltart urged them to have developmental minds aimed at nurturing their students.
“At the moment, there is nothing we can offer you. As you all know, we have been trying to stabilise Zimsec (Zimbabwe School Examinations Council) and that is where most of the funds have been going.
“You have to just sacrifice yourselves and act in the interest of the children who have suffered for quite a long time,” said Minister Coltart.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe last year chipped in and paid invigilators allowances for them to supervise the writing of examinations.
The majority of them thought the trend would continue this year.
Minister Coltart said he would act “fast” to ensure that relief teachers in remote areas in the country had their contracts reviewed.
Last week, the teachers – through their representatives – wrote to their parent ministry threatening to boycott invigilating examinations if no allowances were paid.
Teachers’ unions said their members wanted compensation for the 14 “extra days” they would be working, as schools would close on December 4.
However, the teachers’ unions expressed mixed feelings over the Government’s position yesterday, with only the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe saying it would mobilise its members to undertake the national duty.
“For the benefit of the students, our members must report for invigilation while negotiations continue.
“We will engage the Government to add extra leave days to all those who will be invigilating,” said PTUZ secretary-general Mr Raymond Majongwe. He added that they would have wanted the Government to pay each teacher US$3 for each paper supervised.
However, the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association and the Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, yesterday warned Government that their members would “obviously” want to use the holiday time to look for part-time jobs to supplement their “meagre” salaries.
“We have already made our holiday plans for the period after December 4 and therefore we will not invigilate without compensation,” said a Zimta official who declined to be named.
A TUZ official urged the Government and Zimsec to act swiftly for the benefit of the pupils “who did nothing to contribute to the exam crisis in this country”.
Zimsec officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Last week, the examinations body heaped the blame on the ministry for extending the examination registration deadline that had created these administration bottlenecks.
This year’s examination preparations have already been thrown into turmoil with thousands of prospective candidates failing to register owing to “exorbitant” fees.
This week, most schools around Zimbabwe confirmed that they were yet to receive statements of entry from Zimsec.
However, Zimsec dismissed the claims.
Ordinary and Advanced Level exams are set to begin tomorrow and Friday respectively while the last papers would be written on December 18.