Teachers leaving in abject poverty

THE year 2020 redefined society in a huge way because of the novel coronavirus. The education sector was severely affected by this pandemic, not just in Zimbabwe, but globally.

The education sector was heavily impacted by the COVID-19-induced lockdown. Our education sector was hard hit because prior to COVID-19 it had its own challenges due to years of neglect.

The government gave a directive of the physical closure of schools as part of the national COVID-19-induced lockdown on March 24 2020. Schools suffered a six-month closure and learners lost out on valuable learning time in 2020.

The conversation now focused on how students would continue with learning in their homes and several alternative ways of learning were introduced such as online learning and broadcast media.

However, only those privileged enough and well-resourced to be in private schools managed to quickly adapt through online learning platforms whereas public schools remained on a complete shutdown.

Schools officially opened on September 28 2020 in a phased approach beginning with examination classes because of the need to decongest schools, especially public ones where infrastructure is limited and the teacher-per-student ratio is high. This decision was arrived at without adequate wider consultation as recommended by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund framework for safe reopening of schools that advocates for multisectoral consultations.

This led to unintended consequences such as teacher absenteeism. Learning did not take place during the time as teachers had declared incapacitation.

Currently teachers are receiving a monthly salary of $17 000 at a time the consumer price index for an individual stands at $4 987 00 per month according to the ZimStats January 2021 report.

For an average family of six, this translates to $29 922 per month.

Teachers are, therefore, living in abject poverty.

The Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz) launched a COVID-19 monitoring platform where teachers would report on the preparedness of their schools in receiving students and school staff back to schools, a total of 20 education districts participated in the survey.

Two districts were picked from each of the 10 administration districts.

A total of 20 schools participated per district. The average compliance to government set standard operating procedures stood at 30%.

As the schools are at the verge of reopening as per government announcement on March 2 2021, what is important is to ensure that the key issues highlighted above are dealt with head-on so that we avoid the errors of 2020 as explained above. Amalgamated Rural Teachers

Union of Zimbabwe