Cash-strapped Zimbabwe to recruit 10,000 teachers
By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |
The Zimbabwean government is adding at least four million dollars to its monthly wage bill following a cabinet resolution to employ an extra 10,000 teachers.
The decision was made last month, according to Primary and Secondary Education minister, Lazarus Dokora in an interview with State media.
The recruitment will include a substantial number of school heads who will be posted mainly to rural areas.
Currently, there are about 120,000 teachers, says the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta), and Dokora noted that the country must work with a maximum of 130,000 educators at the non-tertiary level.
““The directive was given at the beginning of the second term. That is when we were told that we are supposed to recruit teachers and headmasters.
“From that period, we were working hard on the recruitment of teachers so that these teachers would be deployed in resettlement areas, rural areas and other areas that have teacher shortages,” said Dokora.
Teachers earn $400 a month on average, excluding allowances.
The minister did not specify how many schools would be set up or the rationale for doing so.
Since 2014, government has been struggling to pay civil servants’ salaries.
For the first time, it failed to pay their bonuses at the end of last year and the 13th cheque was staggered between January and June this year.
Civil servants payslips no longer bear the next pay date as government is now living from hand to mouth due to a depleted revenue base.
Most industries have closed shop and hundreds of thousands of workers have joined the bustling informal market, with unemployment now independently estimated at more than 90 percent.
There has been a freeze on civil servants posts and government has resorted to exporting expert labour, particularly in the medical field, due to the public sector cash squeeze.
It was not immediately clear where government would get the money for the extra thousands of teachers.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is currently engaged in a Staff Monitored Programme (SMP) that is meant to, among other things, rationalise public expenditure. Nehanda Radio
