By Dr Takavafira M. Zhou (Ptuz President).
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News of The South)) – Sundayreport (24 May 2020) to the effect that the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Cain Mathema, indicated that schools in Zimbabwe would open in three weeks, is unfortunate, ill-conceived and the greatest indicator of gvt hypocrisy.
Government engagement with teacher unions has so far established the difficulty of coming up with timeframes without putting in place conditionalities recommended by WHO, and worse still at a time when cases of covid 19 are increasing. Surprisingly, the Minister seem to have disregarded logical resolutions from engagement with teacher unions. Whereas the education system needs more than 50 000 teachers to ensure a teacher : pupil ratio of 1:20 and therefore social distance, the Ministry is planning to recruit only 6000. We even have 10 000 schools and in practice 4000 schools will not get a single teacher, while the other 6000 schools would get a single teacher per school.
While the Minister seem to have timeframes for opening of schools, he was silent on delivery of testing kits, thermometers and PPEs to 10 000 schools and adequate for all teachers, pupils and ancillary staff. He was silent about timeframe for cleaning, disinfection or fumigation of all schools in general, and those currently used as quarantine centres in particular. Even the recruitment of teachers has not started, has no timeframe and, therefore, remains more of rhetoric than reality. The Minister was also silent about risk allowance to teachers as frontline workers in the education sector, let alone restoration of teachers’ purchasing power parity.
I am afraid that if we dont up our tempo in crude and realistic trade unionism, our engagement with Ministry could be useless as our advice is not taken for consideration. We need to roll out plans to resist premature plans to open schools soon. We reiterate our long held view for the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to embrace health and safety first approach, rather than an intransigent and irresponsible approach impermeable to reason and grounded facts at hand. If the Ministry cannot guarantee the health and safety of teachers and pupils, it would be incumbent upon teachers, pupils and parents to guarantee their health and safety by resist genocide and suicide perpetrated by the Ministry. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Our best way forward is high prioritisation of our health and safety first, let alone restoration of our salaries’ purchasing power parity, so as to address of our dispute of right. Teachers are important workers too and must never be treated as if they are of no account. The unity of all teachers across the union and non-union divide must be high on our agenda. Our students and their parents are also our allies in this struggle for survival, and must be appraised of the the impending dangers of prematurely opening schools. Our preparedness to guarantee our health, safety and living wage will see us through.
Venceremos
Dr Takavafira M. Zhou (Ptuz President)
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