Unions Urge Government to Improve Teaching Conditions

The Standard

By Jennifer Dube

10 February 2013

CONCERNED educationists and parents have called for the improvement of teaching and learning conditions in the country’s schools to ensure better results in public examinations.

The outcry follows last year’s poor O’level results which showed that the pass rate had dropped from 19,5% in 2011 to 18,4%.
They blamed the poor pass rate on teachers’ lack of motivation due to low salaries and the absence of learning materials in most schools.

Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) secretary-general Raymond Majongwe said the results were evidence that “poorly remunerated teachers yielded poor results”.

“Teachers’ housing and classrooms are in poor state, there is no electricity in most schools and some teachers are operating under uncertain conditions,” Majongwe said.

He said most teachers who previously left teaching and returned under the government’s amnesty programme were constantly told to renew their contracts.

Apart from that, he said, the students’ education calendar was chaotic from the time they started Grade One in 2002 as there were violent election scenes in most parts of the country in 2002, 2005 and 2008, with Zanu PF militia chasing away teachers from schools.
A number of teachers relocated to neighbouring countries such as Botswana and South Africa.

A lecturer at a local university, Oswell Hapanyengwi said resources at learning centres needed improvement. “Some students are currently sharing textbooks yet the ideal situation is that each child should have access to a book every time they need it,” Hapanyengwi said.

“We also need to motivate the teachers because the output of a disgruntled person is affected as shown by these results.”

Majongwe said society also contributed to the poor results as it usually celebrates when a child speaks English fluently instead of Shona, hence the poor Shona results.

He blamed the poor Maths results on the brain drain.

The PTUZ boss said some children prioritised viewing television, surfing the internet and mobile phones over their studies.

“We need to set minimum values, including banning children from bringing phones to school,” Majongwe said. “How would they pass when we have Form Twos advocating for condoms to be availed at schools?”
Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) chief executive Sifiso Ndlovu said the alarm caused by the results was unfounded as the pass rate was within the usual range.

“People are saying children failed a lot but when have they ever passed more because since independence, the pass rate has always hovered around 20%,” Ndlovu said.

“This year we have a 1,5% decrease and this cannot be said to be a marked drop.”

Ndlovu said authorities needed to properly resource schools in rural areas and high-density suburbs as they recorded the poorest results every year.

Some critics said staffing levels in new rural schools needed improvement as most children at these learning centres were being taught by unqualified teachers.

They added that private colleges needed scrutiny as most were compromising standards in their pursuit of profit from school fees.
Education minister David Coltart last week said the results were the best in 12 years, citing a Zimsec table which showed that the pass rate stood at 13,88% in the year 2000, rising a little to 13,99% in 2001 and dropping to 13,75 % in 2002.

The pass rate stood at 13% in 2003, 10,2% in 2004, 12,2% in 2005, 14,2% in 2006, 9,85 in 2007, 14,44% in 2008, 19,33% in 2009, 16,5% in 2010 and 19,50 in 2011.