By Dr Takavafira Zhou
Yesterday gvt enunciated the relaxation of covid-19 lockdown regulations in Zimbabwe that also ambushed educators by indicating that 2020 exams would be written in November and December.
The enunciation that November exams would be written as per tradition in November and December is at best a fantasy and at worst a fabrication of reality. It is noteworthy that schools closed on 24 March 2020, and since then the so called gvt radio and television lessons failed to take off. Only teachers’ class and subject whatsApp groups have been operative albeit with restrictions as data bundles are expensive and several parents and students also have no smartphones that can access whatsApp.
Examinations are not an event but process. That process must include preparing students adequately for such exams, guaranteeing the health and safety of teachers, pupils and ancillary staff, let alone the welfare of teachers. It is our humble professional view that students need three months of intensive learning before writing examinations. We certainly dont see how the gvt would procure, let alone place in 10 000 schools covid-19 abatement equipment (testing kits, thermometers, sanitizers and other PPEs) in schools and test millions of students and 136000 teachers and 50 000 ancillary staff in order to ensure opening of schools soon and writing of exams in November.
The completion of the 2020 academic year needs sober reflections and proper planning which are all lacking in the enunciation. Without clear benchmarks as to how this is possible the enunciation remains mere rhetoric and homelitic bellicose. The health and safety of teachers and students must never be taken for granted yet there is virtually nothing that reflect any serious consideration. No amount of commandist approach can ever triumph over profession approach. We certainly need to put reason before chola.
Indeed teachers are more than ready to open schools any day and see their students learning, let alone writing examinations. But that must certainly be done in a professional way and without compromising teachers’ health, safety and welfare. The welfare of teachers must be addressed before opening of schools leading to the restoration of their purchasing power parity. Teachers’ October 2018 salaries pegged at US$550 is all that teachers are clamouring for more so taking cognisant of the fact that Zimbabwe has now redollarised. The current scenario where other sectors with less duties and responsibilities as compared to teachers are earning 5 times the salary of teachers (pegged at $3800-$4200) is uneviable. Schools must open in a healthy environment and in order to guarantee meaningful teaching and learning that thoroughly prepare students for examinations. It would be unfortunate if the gvt continues forward headlong insisting that the recent discrepancies created between teachers’ salaries and other sectors are a Presidential prerogative. No amount of Presidential prerogative can introduce such callous and acidic discrepancies. This is an insult tailor-made to force teachers to embark on industrial action at a time schools are supposed to be reopen to complete the 2020 academic year. We urge gvt to mellow down to a more constructive approach permeable to broad consultations, professionalism, reason, facts and consensus rather than adopting a commandist approach. We are aware that gvt will soon be calling for useless meetings with the defective and moribund Apex Council to pacify teachers. Such firefighting antics will never be a panacea to industrial harmony and productivity but liability. What teachers want is robust collective bargaining guaranteed under section 65 of the constitution as opposed to collective begging under archaic and obsolete Statutory Instrument 141 of 1997. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
To the teachers of Zimbabwe, the time for purposeful unity in defence of the profession is now. Let professional voices reverberate throughout Zimbabwe that teachers are in essence a vital cog of societal and national development and must be well remunerated and supported by gvt to be dynamic and innovative to engineer a skills revolution in line with global Agenda 2030. We are everything yet we now count for nothing. The struggle to liberate teachers from being treated in a degrading and servitude manner is our professional right and credo. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Venceremos
Dr Takavafira M. Zhou (Ptuz President)
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