The government has yesterday informed teachers who are incapacitated and not able to report for duty to borrow money and report for duty.
The response by government comes after some teachers are failing to go back to work insisting that their allowances are not enough for them to resume their duties.
Speaking during a post cabinet media briefing yesterday, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Tumisang Thabela said teachers attendance at schools across the country was high whilst urging teachers who have not yet reported for duty due to incapacitation to “borrow money and go to work.”
“From our daily check of attendance, for the previous week. I haven’t looked at today’s one because it comes around this time. The number of teachers that were coming as compared to the number we were expecting was over 70%. There’s one or two provinces where it is depressed, but generally, we are over 70%. So those who are supposed not to have enough money and whatever. We are hoping by the end of this week they would have borrowed enough money, to go back to work,” she said.
Recently Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe {PTUZ} President, Mr Takavafira Zhou said teachers were also parents who have an obligation to tackle family responsibilities hence it was hard for them to remain incapacitated.
“Fundamentally, teachers have no money to pay fees for their own children, pay for transport costs to their respective stations, and for their upkeep up to their September pay day. To assume that teachers can borrow money in order to go to their respective stations whilst their own children remain confined at home is oxymoronic,” he said.
Zhou added that government must first address the incapacitation of teachers by giving them a rescue package to return to work insisting that it was impossible for teachers to return to work without money.
“As PTUZ, we appeal to government to mellow down to a more constructive approach, permeable to reason and facts. Government must urgently offer teachers a rescue package that can take them to the next pay day. However, by the end of a time framed short period, government can commit itself to provide a panacea to teachers’ legitimate concern over restoration of the purchasing power parity of their salaries. Without such envisaged rescue package it will be mission impossible for many teachers to report for work,” said Zhou.
Various teachers representatives have been continuously calling on the government to increase the salaries of teachers but government has not yet increased teachers salaries to the expected amount which have caused a continuous disagreement between the two entities.