MUTARE– Government has adopted a motion to lift a general recruitment freeze on posts in the education sector to counter the high number of pupils per teacher ratio.
This development was confirmed by the Minister of Labor Professor Paul Mavhima during a virtual meeting hosted by Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) on the Future of Work and Public Finance Management (PFM) Reform Indaba.
Prof Mavima revealed that a Presidential directive has been issued to lift the general recruitment freeze in the education sector as a matter of urgency to address unstainable high numbers of teacher pupil ratio.
“This is matter that we are happy about, a few weeks ago when it was discussed and His Excellency actually directed that the general freeze on the teaching posts should be lifted, I will check with my colleagues in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to see what has then happened.
“But there was a specific directive that teaching posts with education should be unfrozen and it was in reference to the unsustainable level of teacher pupil ratio that President made a directive that new teachers can be hired.
“We just need to know whether that directive has started to be affected,” said Prof Mavima
Prof Mavima said the two Ministers responsible for education (Primary and Secondary as well as Higher Education) have since been tasked with drawing up a road map on the reopening of schools and institutions of higher learning.
He said the roadmap would be a holistic approach to ensure the safety of students and teachers, carter for issues of hygiene as well as other considerations before schools could open.
“The Minister of Education, both of them, were asked during this past cabinet meeting were asked to come up with a road map on the reopening of schools.
“It was not a question of when they are going to open but was if we are going to open, how we are going to guarantee safety of teachers and pupils,” he said.
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Raymond Majongwe had queried, if government would unfreeze posts in education similarly to the unfreezing of the health sector in response to COVID19.
He said the high number of teacher to pupil ratio standing at 120 pupils per teacher was unsustainable in the long run and should be reduced to meet international standards recommending twenty and fifteen pupils per teacher.
“Government has unfrozen the health sector posts, specifically for education, are we going also to see the unfreezing of posts as well?
“What we are noting the world over the teacher pupil ration has to be brought down from the reality where it is one hundred and twenty students for one teacher now, it must be brought down to between fifteen and twenty students per teacher.
“It means army of unemployed teachers must now be given a chance to come the class room,” said Majongwe.
Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Union president Peter Mutasa called for confrontation of government over various gaps in the labor sector post the COVID19 disaster, to force implementation of reforms.
Mutasa said there was need for a united front from both the informal and formal sectors to confront a ‘brutal state’ to ensure that structural reforms are adopted and implemented by government.
“What we need to do in order to attain those demands that we put forward to government for the working across the diversities we cannot continue to have divisions between formal and informal sectors.
“We need to unite and must understand that these all demands will be either implemented on not in the political arena, we need to be organized to confront a formidable capital and a quite brutal state.
“We cannot come out of this crisis with the same social and economic order that we had before Covid, that we should not allow, because we will not even resuscitate the economy and we will sink deeper. The only agents that ensure we respond stronger it’s up to the labor,” said Mutasa.
