Zimbabwean
By Fungi Kwaramba
22 July 2010
HARARE – More than 15 000 teachers have rejoined the profession since the unity government took office last year and improved salaries for civil servants including teachers, Education Minister David Coltart said last week.Â
However Coltart said while remuneration for teachers was sufficient to lure them back to classrooms it remained well below preferable levels, adding that he was pushing the government to improve salaries for the country’s educators.
“Despite the low salaries that teachers are getting over 15 000 have returned since last year blanket amnesty for all teachers to return,†Coltart said last week.
“Teachers are being paid sufficiently to get back into the system, but I reiterate that I understand that teachers salaries are inadequate and I am continuously arguing in cabinet for equality in the civil service. There are many people in the civil service who are being paid far more than teachers,” he added.
Education experts say Zimbabwe requires about 150 000 trained teachers for effective teaching but has plus or minus 100 000 teachers in schools because of a severe brain drain that saw thousands of the country’s best qualified educators either leaving the country for better paying jobs abroad or leaving teaching to join other more rewarding sectors of the economy.
Several hundreds more teachers are also said to have left schools especially in rural areas after unprecedented post-electoral violence that swept across the country following the defeat of President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu (PF) party in elections in March 2008.
Teachers were targeted for attack by Zanu (PF) militia and war veterans who accused them of campaigning for the then opposition MDC party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
The exodus of teachers coupled with the government’s inability over the past 10 years of recession to maintain schools or provide learning materials such as chalks, textbooks and exercise books has left Zimbabwe’s once revered education sector a mere shadow of its former self.
Coltart, who has battled to revive the public education sector despite scarce resources, said his ministry will push hard to restore dignity to the teaching profession that many young Zimbabweans now shun because of its record of poor pay and working conditions.
He said: “My first priority is to ensure that teachers are paid sufficiently so as to restore their integrity. The good side is that we have an incredibly dedicated teaching staff which is the essential ingredient in improving the education sector.â€
Teachers in Zimbabwe’s public schools earn an average US$236 monthly wage as the power-sharing government struggles to revive an economy battered by years of hyperinflation, lure back investors and pay its workers.