04 February 2022
Prosperity Sikhosana
Federation of Zimbabwe Educators Union (FOZEU) has declared that its members will not be able to report to work on Monday when schools open for the first term.
Inadequate inflation ravaged salaries have been given as the reason for the declaration of incapacitation.
A statement released by FOZEU reads,
“Teachers are heavily incapacitated and will not be able to report for duty on the 7th of February 2022.”
The school calendar has been disrupted several times ever since the onset of the Corona Virus pandemic in 2020 when the first lockdown was pronounced. Ever since scholars have not had a steady flow of school.
The latest disturbance was in December when the government announced a level 2 lockdown that unsued the postponement of the school calendar which was set to begin on the 10th of January.
The latest postponement was necessitated by the latest Covid-19 Omicron variant which had been found to have mutated several times over and is extremely fast infectious.
FOZEU has urged the government to meet demands of Teachers.
This they hope is done through the restoration of the value of teachers’ salaries as was in 2018 which was approximately US$540.
At the time, the government has introduced a surrogate currency, the Bond note, which the minister of Finance had declared it (the surrogate) was equivalent to the green pack.
Later on the government introduced the Zimbabwe Lords which at the time had depreciated value against the US dollar.
From then, the local currency has been on the free fall against major trading currencies to trade at 1:230.
This has resulted in the serious erosion of Zimbabwean teachers’ salaries, including civil servants.
FOZEU has bemoaned the lack of adequate Personal Protective Equipment in mostly government schools.
This is because health experts have observed that school premises with pupils are superspreaders of the respiratory disease as learners are clustered because of pupil to teacher ratio.
“Enhance the capacity of schools to adhere to Covid-19 standard operating procedures.”
This comes after it has been observed that most school classes are characterised by 40 to 50 students in one classroom, without any signs of social distancing whatsoever.
Teachers’ union also suggested that teachers’ children should not pay school fees if the teacher is employed by government.
FOZEU said that they would like government to pay for a teacher’s children’s school fees, up to three children.
“Teachers will not report for duty until the above demands are met. 7 February is a National Day of Action for education, an online protest will be staged by all citizens in a bid to protect our education from further collapse,” stated Teachers Union.
The most affected children are those who learn at government schools who have dismally failed to ensure education continuity during lockdowns unlike private schools who have offered online lessons as a stop gap measure.
The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education introduced Radio lessons through the national Broadcaster, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, ZBC.
Our survey proved that the radio lessons had no impact in the continuity of children’s education especially those in the rural areas.
With other nations such as South Africa already declaring Covid-19 as an endemic and continuing with life as is, Zimbabwe still lags behind causing the education system if not everything in the country to crumble.
These past few days, the government has issued a statement to the effect that the hiring of 10 000 new teachers has already begun.
While the hiring of more teachers is most welcome, the elephant in the room has not been tackled. The teacher’s salary has become useless and the employer has sunk his head in the sand.
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