VOA
4 September 2009
By Patience Rusere

Washington – Officers and hundreds of members of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe met in Harare on Friday and resolved to stay away from work two days a week though continuing to give lessons the other three in a partial strike

The decision was seen as a compromise between PTUZ officials and rank-and-file members, many of whom are said to have already joined a strike called on Wednesday, the first day of a new term in the national school system, by the rival Zimbabwe Teachers Association.

PTUZ officials had hoped that with Education Minister David Coltart out of the country on business related to the Southern African Development Community summit opening Monday, Finance Minister Tendai Biti would meet with teachers to discuss their wage demands.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Association has demanded an increase in teachers salaries of some US$150 currently to US$700, which the government says it cannot afford.

But Biti sent word that as Coltart could not attend the meeting he did not consider that it would be appropriate for him to engage the union by himself.

PTUZ General Secretary Raymond Majongwe urged his members not to heed the ZIMTA call to completely boycott classes, correspondent Fazila Mahomed reported from Harare.

Union members ultimately resolved to stay away from classes on Thursdays and Fridays but to continue teaching Monday through Wednesday.

After the meeting, hundreds of teachers tried to march to the Ministry of Education but police barred the way. Union leader Majongwe said police demanded he go with them to the Harare Central Police Station, but he refused. Police then left and the teachers dispersed, he said.

PTUZ Mashonaland West Provincial Chairman Rosten Mutapa told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the union did not want to shut down schools which would penalize students and parents, but needed to send a message to the government.

Zimonline
4 September 2009
By Andrew Moyo

HARARE – More Zimbabwean teachers on Wednesday appeared to heed union calls to boycott classes to press the government to increase salaries and improve working conditions.

The Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (ZIMTA), the largest of two unions representing the country’s 90 000 teachers called for an indefinite nationwide strike beginning Tuesday when the final school term of the year began.

But the smaller Progressive Teachers Union (PTUZ) did not support the strike call, urging teachers to report for duty to give the cash-strapped coalition government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai time to raise resources to improve salaries and working conditions.

Many schools appeared to begin the new team successfully on Tuesday with the majority of teachers reporting for duty.

But the situation had completely changed yesterday with most teachers absent from schools while hundreds of learners were seen returning home after finding no teachers at school.

In Harare’s high-income northern suburbs students could be seen trooping back home as early as 9 am after they found no teachers at school. Scores of schoolchildren from the working class suburb of Highfield said they had not bothered to go to school because their teachers had told them on Wednesday to stay home.

Some schools remained open in other parts of the capital but teachers did not conduct lessons, while in some schools teachers turned up but the rate of attendance by students was low because they had anticipated that teachers would not be at work.

ZimOnline correspondents in the second largest city of Bulawayo and in the farming towns of Karoi and Chinhoyi, north of Harare, reported similarly chaotic situations at schools.

ZIMTA chief executive officer Sifiso Ndlovu told ZimOnline on Thursday that the strike had been successful, as most teachers nationwide had downed tools.

“It (the strike) has gone deeper,” Ndlovu said. “It is showing exactly what it should be like if there is a strike, it is now a full blown strike but there are no signals yet from the government. I think they are still digesting things from their side,” the ZIMTA CEO said.

He said figures of the strike would only be available late yesterday evening as they were still trickling in.

PTUZ secretary general Raymond Majongwe described the strike situation as a “mixed bag” with some schools closed but others open as well. “I have been going around schools, it is a mixed bag. There are no schools that are closed but the degree of the turnout (by students) is what is worrying, but the teachers are there,” he said.

Majongwe said teachers’ representatives were scheduled to meet Education Minister David Coltart and Finance Minister Tendai Biti in Harare today to try to resolve the salaries dispute.

Coltart, who has been doing a brilliant job trying to revive Zimbabwe’s education sector, said he was not yet ready to comment as he was still assessing the situation.

Teachers, who are earning on average US$155 per month, are demanding that salaries and allowances be adjusted progressively towards the poverty datum line or breadline – last month quoted at US$502 –by December 2009.

Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government has promised to revive the economy and restore basic services such as health and education that had virtually collapsed after years of recession.

While schools and hospitals have reopened failure by the unity government – which says it requires a total US$10 billion to get Zimbabwe on its feet again – to convince rich Western nations to release grants and soft loans has hampered its ability to sustain the recovery effort.

Public doctors only called off a strike for more pay three weeks ago, responding to a call by Tsvangirai to return to work while the government scrounges around for funds to meet their demands.

Western governments insist they will not provide support until they see evidence Mugabe is committed to genuinely sharing power with Tsvangirai.

The Zimbabwean
4 September 2009

The country’s largest teachers’ union has this week been accused of deliberately disrupting the start of the new school term, with observers commenting that the union has highly politicised motives. Thousands of members of the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (ZIMTA) on Wednesday embarked on a nationwide strike to coincide with the start of the new term. The teachers’ association said the strike only started picking up momentum on Thursday, with an official saying up to 95% of its members have downed tools. Other reports suggest the strike has been less dramatic, with education officials saying the ‘strike’ more closely resembles a ‘go-slow’. Education Minister David Coltart explained on Thursday that the majority of teachers have reported to work, despite the nationwide strike called by ZIMTA last week. The association had called for the industrial action over unresolved salary grievances, arguing the government has not been sincere in guaranteeing better wages and working conditions for the country’s educators. The Education and Finance Ministries have previously called for patience from disgruntled civil servants, explaining the government does not have the financial resources to improve salaries yet.

An attempt to avert the strike on Monday failed when a meeting between the Union and government officials did not materialise. However, Education Minister Coltart, as well as Finance Minister Tendai Biti, met with the leaders of the country’s two other, smaller teachers’ unions on Tuesday, to encourage a productive start to the school term. Officials from the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) and the Teachers Union of Zimbabwe told the Ministers that their members were being encouraged to return to their posts at the start of the term on Wednesday, saying a strike was futile and a threat to the country’s reputation.

Minister Coltart told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that ZIMTA teachers only left their posts after union officials circulated a letter, telling their members to do so. Coltart explained that mass confusion is now the order of the day, with many teachers embarking on a ‘go-slow’ rather than a full on strike, but he added that some teaching is underway. The Minister said that the timing of the ZIMTA strike is suspicious, accusing the union of deliberately disrupting the start of a very important school term.

“This is a cynical action by ZIMTA that has been deliberately planned to have the greatest possible impact,” Coltart said. “It shows callous disregard for the welfare of the students.”

The strike has revealed deep divisions between the members of the different unions, with critics arguing the move by ZIMTA is highly politicised. ZIMTA has always been a ZANU PF aligned union and has never before called for strike action. On the other hand, the usually more militant PTUZ is said to be supportive of the MDC, and has exercised more patience with the fledgling unity government. Observers have said the ZIMTA strike is a deliberate attempt to discredit the MDC, which now has the troubled Finance and Education Ministries to turn around, after they completely collapsed while in the hands of ZANU PF.

ZIMTA’s Acting Chief Executive, Sifiso Ndlovu, on Thursday said such accusations are ‘neither here nor there’, arguing their sole motive is to urge the government to meet the salary demands of teachers. Ndlovu argued, “It is unfortunate that students will suffer and that education will be compromised,” but he said he hoped the strike would be concluded well before students write exams.

“ZIMTA is a-political, has always been a-political and will remain a-political,” Ndlovu said. “We will continue to engage with the government and represent teachers for their needs.” Meanwhile, there has been an angry outcry over Minister Biti’s attempts to persuade striking teachers to rescind their decision, after he said that Robert Mugabe is taking home a monthly salary of US$300.

“Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the economy and revenue improves by 300 per cent, we have no fiscal space for a salary increment at the moment. Even the President is currently earning US$300 and we can’t draw water from stones. The economy is not performing,” Biti told teachers.

However the statement will likely cause anger among civil servants who do not have the financial resources to support their families, never mind take medical breaks in Dubai or pay foreign university tutelage for their children. It is widely acknowledged that Mugabe is the wealthiest man in Zimbabwe as a result of years of dictatorial rule and corruption.

The Herald
Editorial
4 September 2009

Harare — Teachers’ unions that have urged their members to report for work despite complaints over salaries should be commended for their understanding and valuing the needs of students.

However, as we have previously stated, there is need to holistically address the issue of salaries of not only teachers, nurses and doctors –the three groups which are constantly on strike but also of the entire civil and uniformed service.

Teachers should bear in mind that the rest of the civil service is also getting the low salaries because Government is broke. Government is not a profit-making organisation but relies on taxes for its revenue.

Most sectors of the economy are still operating below capacity, hence the modest inflow of revenue from taxes into State coffers. In the same vein, the onus is on Finance Minister Tendai Biti to convince teachers and all civil servants that Government is battling to raise money.

Minister Biti should also make an unambiguous pronouncement that as the economy grows and revenue from taxes improves, Government will increase the salaries of civil servants until they reach a livable level.

This is how employers in the private sector have dealt with the problems of salaries. They have simply adopted the strategy that they will increase workers’ salaries and wages in tandem with the rise in income. It might also be prudent for Government to publish its monthly earnings from tax collections to help civil servants understand its position.

Minister Biti admitted in an interview with our sister paper, The Sunday Mail, that Government had stopped looking to the West for the country’s economic revival after realising that the intended partners lacked the goodwill to support Zimbabwe.

He said Government was now looking at harnessing local resources to pull the country out of the present economic hardships.

Perhaps he now realises that his party, the MDC-T, should have never called for sanctions because the embargo has not hurt the politicians they were fighting but the economy and ordinary people who constitute the majority of civil servants. Until the sanctions are lifted and the Zimbabwean economy rebounds, we should not expect miracles. Some of the companies that have done well since the introduction of the multi-currency system have had to devise their own survival strategies.

But they could have performed better than they are doing at the moment if the country was not under the siege of sanctions.

We hail the Progressive Teachers’ Union for being true to its name and being progressive by urging its members to report for lessons while their grievances are being addressed.

The Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe has also shown it appreciates the plight of Government and wants to give dialogue a chance, again a commendable stance. It is in everyone’s best interest to be reasonable and co-operate on such issues of national importance.

Students will soon be going into exams and cannot afford to lose anymore time. On compassionate grounds each teacher who is on strike should reconsider and go back to the classroom for the students’ sake.

VOA
3 September 2009
By Jonga Kandemiiri

Many of Zimbabwe’s public primary and secondary schools were idled Thursday on the second day of a teachers strike called by the Zimbabwe Teachers Association, which is demanding a significant increase in monthly compensation for its members, though the rival Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe was not officially supporting the strike.

Sources in Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare said some teachers belonging to the PTUZ were also absent from classrooms. PTUZ officials said most of their members were on the job as usual, but acknowledged that some might have followed the ZIMTA strike call.

Union officials denied, however, that their membership was divided over the leadership call for members to remain on the job in the nation’s schools.

Sources among the PTUZ rank and file said that some members are accusing the leaders of being too close to the national unity government led by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, whose career began as a labor organizer.

The PTUZ said it has invited Education Minister David Coltart and Finance Minister Tendai Biti to address teachers in the capital on Friday. The two ministers sought to meet late Tuesday with officials of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association who did not show up.

PTUZ General Secretary Raymond Majongwe told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri that he and his fellow union leaders will confer after teachers in Harare have met with the ministers.

VOA
3 September 2009
By Patience Rusere

Zimbabwe’s public school system, once considered the best in Africa, remains mired in crisis despite hope it would revive under the national unity government installed in February.

David Coltart’s appointment as minister of education was welcomed by many including the unions representing teachers, and he has won plaudits for his work in coaxing underpaid and often politically repressed teachers to return to their classrooms.

But the education system was plunged back into crisis this week when Zimbabwe Teachers Association launched yet another strike Wednesday as a new school term began.

To examine the latest strike’s impact on schools and children, reporter Patience Rusere of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe turned to Senior Program Officer Elias Matendere of the Center for Community Development and Coordinator Israel Mabhoo of the Chiedza Nkanyiso community-based schools program, which recruits retired teachers.

Matendere said an unending series of labor actions by teachers is hindering the education of children who lost many days in the classroom in 2008 amid election-related turmoil.

SW Radio Africa
3 September 2009

The start of the new school term has been marred by a strike by some teachers on Wednesday, after members of the leading teachers’ union refused to return to their posts.

Schools reopened as scheduled on Wednesday, but many classes were suspended because of the nationwide strike. Teachers with the larger of three teachers’ unions, the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA), resolved last week not to return to work at the start of term, because of unresolved salary grievances. ZIMTA on Friday 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 two other teachers unions, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) and the Teachers Union of Zimbabwe however this week urged their members not to down tools. The unions met with Education officials on Tuesday to assure them that their members would be back at work as scheduled. The PTUZ has previously said another teachers’ strike would be detrimental to Zimbabwe’s reputation.
“The two unions which attended the meeting assured us that lessons would resume,” Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart said in an interview with state media on Tuesday evening.
“Regrettably, ZIMTA did not attend the meeting and we assume their members might absent themselves but they should know that it is the children who suffer once again,” Coltart continued.

The Herald
3 September 2009

Harare — Thousands of schoolteachers countrywide heeded calls by their unions to report for duty as lessons resumed in earnest for the third term yesterday.

However, there was confusion in some provinces over the actual opening date as some schools had indicated to students and teachers that the third term would begin on September 8.

Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart yesterday said his ministry could not understand the source for this confusion as it had communicated that schools would reopen on the 2nd and not the 8th of September.

He said the position remained unchanged and all Govern-ment workers were expected to report for duty when schools opened yesterday. Minister Coltart confirmed that the majority of the teachers had turned up for lessons yesterday, but some of them left early for unknown reasons.

He, however, appealed to teachers to attend lessons to avoid jeorpadising students’ learning. “We continue to appeal to teachers to attend lessons as this third term is crucial to our students. Ordinary and Advanced Level final examinations are just a month away and we don’t want to affect students,” he said.

Educators in Zimbabwe are represented by fragmented groups the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association, the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe and the Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe.

Zimta has called for a nationwide teachers’ strike demanding a salary increment that would bring their earnings at par with their counterparts in the region, while the other unions are calling for “constructive dialogue”.

Zimta secretary-general Mr Richard Gundani yesterday said their membership went to work in the morning, but returned after receiving circulars informing them of the job action. “We are starting a full-scale strike in several cities and towns tomorrow (today). Our members will not report for work at all,” he said.

However, PTUZ secretary-general Mr Raymond Majongwe yesterday said his union was encouraging its members to report for duty today as they try to exhaust all communication channels.

“Most of our members reported for duty. We haven’t heard of any absenteeism. Some of the teachers phoned our offices to seek clarification and we told them to attend lessons,” said Mr Majongwe.

TUZ chief executive officer Mr Manuel Nyawo yesterday concurred with Mr Majongwe that the teachers should give dialogue with their employer a chance. In Masvingo, almost all teachers throughout the province reported for work.

It was business as usual at most Masvingo schools after most of the teachers reported for duty and proceeded to conduct lessons in both Masvingo urban and rural. Normal activities were noted at Vurombo, Dikwindi and Victoria Junior primary schools while teachers at Victoria, Mucheke and Ndarama high schools also reported for duty.

Teachers at boarding schools such as Berejena and Mutendi high schools were at their stations. In interviews some of the teachers said they were tired of being used as “pawns in political games” hence the decision to report for duty.

“We understand the situation facing the country at the moment and it will be heartless for us to boycott classes at a time when pupils are due for their final exams,” said a teacher at Berejena High School who preferred anonymity.

Prime Minister’s Newsletter
www.zimbabweprimeminister.org
2nd September 2009

Schools are opening on Wednesday for the third term under the veil of a pay strike threat by the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA). We interviewed the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart (DC) to find out more about the situation in public schools.

Q: Are you happy with the pace of recovery in the education sector since you took over six months ago?

DC: Whilst we have had some major breakthroughs in terms of getting schools open and teachers back to school, the situation remains fragile as demonstrated this week by the ZIMTA decision to strike. Teachers are not being paid enough. They are paid way below what other teachers are paid in South Africa. In other areas as well, the situation is still very grave. Our textbook-pupil ratios are very poor. In most of our schools the ratios are at least 15 pupils to one textbook. In some schools, the only textbook in the classroom is one held by the teacher. If you visit most Government schools you will find that the infrastructure is dilapidated. We see in essence two decades of neglect, two decades of insufficient money being paid to the education sector.

Q: How much do you need to return the education sector to where it was two decades ago?

DC: Let’s take textbooks for example. We need US$90 million just to get three pupils to share one book. The ideal situation of course is to get that ratio down to one textbook to one pupil and that would cost US$200 million, just the textbooks. To rehabilitate the whole infrastructure, just to do a basic rehabilitation of Government schools will cost at least a billion US dollars. If we are to pay our teachers a viable salary, that alone will cost between US$30 and US$40 million a month. So we are looking at huge figures that the Government cannot afford at the moment. The money we have now is a pittance compared to our requirements. The teacher salary bill is in the region of US$12 million a month. So, you see from these figures that we need double or treble what we have now.

Q: To what extent do constant threats of industrial action by teachers affect recovery efforts?

DC: If teachers don’t return to work then the sector is back to square one. Whilst Minister of Finance Tendai Biti and I are very sympathetic to the plight of teachers, the fact of the matter is that this is a transitional Government trying to recover the economy from a devastating downfall caused by very bad policies over two decades. Much as we would like to pay teachers more than they are getting now, we simply can’t afford it and this is the tragedy of the situation. Everyone has had to tighten their belts and teachers to that extent are no different from the vast majority of other people in the country. But through their actions, if they don’t go back to the classroom, they are going to jeopardise the lives of the next generation of children who are completely innocent.

Q: Why is it difficult for organisations such as ZIMTA to understand your situation?

DC: I don’t want to paint all the teachers with the same brush. As we have seen, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe understands the situation. They are suffering as much as those teachers under ZIMTA. But they understand that we are trying our best to remedy the situation and I would hope that ZIMTA would demonstrate similar maturity and patriotism. But I believe that the vast majority of teachers have demonstrated patriotism and I hope that teachers will still turn out for work in the interests of children. It is extremely important however, that they must be satisfied that we are going to do everything possible to alleviate their plight. That is the commitment I give and it’s the commitment that Minister Biti has given.

Q: But is this commitment shared by your colleagues in Government, for example in terms of spending and prioritisation?

DC: This is the real challenge. Minister Biti has made it very clear that education and health are his priorities. The question is; are we going to get a broad consensus in Cabinet to back that commitment? The money for education has to come from somewhere yet the cake is not getting that much bigger. So we have to cut the cake in a different way and that means certain sectors are going to have to be cut back. We will have to cut back on certain other ministries. We will have to cut back on the size of Government and on the luxuries that senior people in Government have become accustomed to over the last three decades. These are hard choices that we will have to make. If we are to persuade teachers that they must cut back and sacrifice, then leaders must demonstrate that they are doing the same. That, in turn, may bond a patriotic sense that we are all working together and making sacrifices in the national good.

Q: Is the Government still pursuing teachers who had fled economic and political problems to settle for menial jobs in neighbouring countries?

DC: One of the legitimate issues raised by ZIMTA was the tardiness in processing the application of teachers to be re-engaged. That has been a matter of deep concern to me. I announced an amnesty for teachers who had left the profession months ago, and yet we still have blockages in the system. I have been issuing further directives in the last month to our administrators saying they must do all in their power to process these applications and salaries fast. In fact in the last week I have implemented further measures. Within the next month or so, we might see those blockages removed and those teachers reintegrated into the system. We lost 20 000 teachers in 2007 and 2008 and we need to attract those teachers back into the profession.

Q: How many teachers do you have in the system and how many do you require?

DC: The establishment caters for over 140 000 teachers. We estimate that we have got between 80 000 and 90 000 teachers. That means there is considerable room to increase the number of teachers. The recommended teacher-pupil ratio in Government schools is forty to one. My National Advisory Board has produced a survey and one of the surprising results of that survey is that we have got high percentages of teachers. In fact the pupil-teacher ratios coming out of the survey is 36 to one. Now, what that means is that it appears we have got a lot less children in our system than we used to have. That may of course be due to the fact that over three million Zimbabweans are in the Diaspora and presumably a lot of children with them there as well. Another factor is that we have many children who can no longer afford to go to school. But we have got to balance all these different factors.

Q: Could you update us on the textbook grant by UNICEF targeting disadvantaged schools?

DC: Yes, I am just about to announce a massive textbook fund. I have been working very closely with UNICEF and donor countries and we have had a lot of success. I have been working closely with the local publishing houses and printing houses as well for the printing of the textbooks.I need to stress that my attitude from day one has been to try to ensure that money from donors is going to be used in Zimbabwe. We should be able to print as many of the books in Zimbabwe as possible. This is going to be a massive program that will unfold over the next five months. We are looking at trying to deliver literally millions of textbooks by the first term of 2010. We have set ourselves very high goals. Through this program I hope I will be able to reduce the shocking textbook ratios in our schools.

Q: Has your Ministry investigated reports that militias have again set bases at rural schools?

DC: I haven’t been able to verify these reports. But what I have done is to issue a statement to all 7 000 Government schools stating that schools are educational institutions and they are to be used solely for educational issues. I have banned the use of schools by any partisan political groups. It would not surprise me though if that directive has not been fully implemented. If need be, I intend to introduce changes to the law to make it very clear that schools are to be solely used for education. I hope in that way we might be able to get rid of the presence of militia from our schools so that we create a conducive atmosphere for learning.