Teachers to snub government pay offer

Teachers to snub government pay offer

• Unions demand PM fleshes out proposal on pay

• Mutambara to pick Coltart for Education Minister

• Children suffer as schools stay closed

• Pupils turned away as most schools fail to open

• UK charity warns 'generation at risk' in Zimbabwe schools chaos

• Teachers strike, demand to be paid in forex

• Strategies for reviving education system

• Zimbabwe delays school term by 2 weeks

• Teachers' union calls for exams to be scrapped

• 16 boys expelled from Cyrene for roasting school pigs

• Mugabe fails to pay promised salaries to teachers

• Teachers call of strike after massive wage hike

• Mugabe says 'good salaries' approved for civil servants

• Mugabe promises to address striking teachers' plight

Posted to the web: 18/02/2009 22:29:13
TEACHERS’ unions on Wednesday rejected a government proposal to pay civil servants US$100 this month and vowed to press on with crippling strikes which have left most of the country’s schools closed, and others operating with skeletal staff.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was cheered as he promised to pay the country’s 130,000 civil servants in foreign currency during his inauguration last week. It was not until Wednesday this week that details of the payment plan were fleshed out by Finance Minister Tendai Biti.

Biti said all government employees – including teachers, police officers and soldiers -- would receive US$100 a month tax-free, replacing their local currency salaries.

The offer was way below teachers’ demands to be paid US$2,300 per month which is at par with what a Canadian teacher earns, and four times what a Polish teacher is paid.

“We have asked for US$2,300 and we are getting US$100,” said Raymond Majongwe, who leads the Progressive Teachers’ Union. “It's ridiculous. We are still suffering. We will not go (back to work).”

Education Minister David Coltart has been holding talks with the teachers’ unions as aid agencies warn that the new government must move with haste to restore order in the education sector.

With many schools still closed, and last year’s examinations still unmarked, the unions are urging the government to consider revising the school calendar. That may mean restarting the first school term.

“There has not been any effective learning since January 27 when schools were supposed to be officially opened,” said Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (ZIMTA) secretary general Richard Gundani. “We advised the minister that there was need to revise the school calendar.”

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