School’s out in Zimbabwe after 135,000 teachers suspended

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AFP) — A strike by Zimbabwean lecturers that has crippled studying entered a second week on Monday, with no decision on sight after the federal government suspended 135,000 lecturers for failing to report for work.

Many lecturers didn’t report for work when colleges opened for the primary time period of the brand new 12 months final week, saying they might now not afford the commute from their dwelling to the classroom.

An AFP correspondent who toured colleges within the capital Harare discovered college students milling across the grounds or taking part in in school rooms.

Some colleges have been fully deserted with neither lecturers or pupils current.

Lecturers in Zimbabwe earn on common US$100 per thirty days.

On Thursday, the schooling ministry stated it was suspending lecturers for 3 months for failing to report for responsibility.

Unions counted the numbers of suspended lecturers at 135,000 out of the roughly 140,000 employed in public colleges.

“The federal government has closed colleges by suspending greater than 90 p.c of lecturers,” Takavafira Zhou, president of Progressive Lecturers’ Union of Zimbabwe informed AFP.

The pay dispute between lecturers and authorities dates again three years when authorities switched from paying staff in US {dollars} to Zimbabwean {dollars}, the worth of which has been weakened by inflation.

“The bottom paid instructor is incomes round US$80 and we’re saying we wish a restoration of the wage we have been incomes underneath (former president Robert) Mugabe which was US$540,” Zhou stated.

Zhou accused the federal government of “ill-treating” lecturers.

“No instructor grows cash in a backyard or receives it like manna from heaven,” he stated, accusing the federal government of utilizing “thuggery strategies” to strive drive lecturers to return to work and vowing unions would battle the suspensions in court docket.

Through the rule of the autocratic Mugabe, himself a skilled instructor, Zimbabwe prided itself on having among the many highest requirements of educations in Africa.

Zimbabwean college students have already misplaced a number of months of studying time to Covid-19 lockdowns.

The financial system of the southern African nation has been on a downward spiral for greater than a decade.

Strikes by lecturers, nurses and medical doctors are frequent as many battle to make ends meet and demand increased pay.

President Emmerson Mnangangwa, who took over from Mugabe after Zimbabwe’s longtime chief was toppled in a coup, pledged to revive the financial system.

However analysts say he has to date didn’t do higher than Mugabe.

© Agence France-Presse