I shudder to think what would have become of me if I had missed one month of schooling in any one year! I was not one of the bright pupils, as all my teachers would acknowledge. I needed the teachers’ guidance every step of the way!
There is no doubt that the corona virus lockdowns have caused serious disruption to the children’s education the world over. 2020 was a wasted year and everything possible must be done to make sure students catch-up. It is folly to assume whatever student were supposed to have learned in all of last year, they learned it!
Losing a whole year of schooling and be push to the next level frightens the day out of me! Between you, the reader, and the brick wall, I repeated my third year at school and that helped.
If it was for me to decide, I would strongly recommend every student should repeat because, like it or not, education is like building a house, the house is only as sold as the foundation on which it stands. I would rather have a single storey building with a solid foundation than a five-storey building with a dodgy foundation; the former will never stand the test of time and the latter will not.
As if the disruption caused by corona virus was not bad enough, the Zimbabwe student is facing the reality of yet another academic year being written off!
Last year, learners spent the better part of 2020 not attending class due the global Covid-19 pandemic resulting in students writing Grade 7 final examinations producing pathetic results.
said students will also be affected this year if teachers are not well remunerated and will as a result boycott work.
"We urge the government to expeditiously resolve the challenges faced by teachers or else 2021 would be a wasted year," Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) President Takavafira Zhou warned in an interview with NewZimbabwe.com.
Zhou claimed the salaries of government employees in state security departments including the army, police, prison and the Central Intelligence Office (CIO) quadrupled this month while teachers' wages remained stagnate.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who have been rigging elections these last 40 years to stay in power. Four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have left the country’s economy in ruins.
And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery. There will be no money to pay teachers a living wage; Takavafira Zhou and his fellow teachers should know this by now.
President Mnangagwa and his government are paying security service personal four times the wage of the teacher or nurse because Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruling by fear and needs to placate the repressive agents. As the economic meltdown gets worse and worse, it is getting worse and worse, the regime will have to quadrupled the soldiers’ wages again and again. And still this will not be enough because, without the economic recovery, these wage increases are only fuelling inflation!
The country has already witness one military coup, “military assisted transition”, as the November 2017 coup plotters called it. The country has remained a pariah state or be it under new management and so, the economic meltdown has continued.
If 2021 is another wasted school year then this generation of students will never ever catch-up. Never! Can you imagine what kind of a nation Zimbabwe will be with 60% or so of all those who were 5 to 20 years old in 2020 whose education attainment is so low they can be considered mentally blind, deaf and dumb!
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President Mnangagwa is painfully aware of the of the hyper-inflation of 2000 to 2008, what fuelled it and the economic damage and human misery it brought. Inflation peaked at 500 billion percent in 2008 and the economy crashed. This was one path the regime has been desperate to avoid travelling down again.
When Zanu PF reintroduced the Z$ in 2018 so that it can print money to cover growing government expenditure against shrinking revenue, everyone knew this was thin end of the inflation wedge. The regime has cut expenditure wherever it could in a desperate effort to keep the slope of the wedge as low as possible.
Education and health were seen as soft targets and they have suffered repeated savage cuts. The regime did not dare cut the security services because it needed them to oppress the masses and it fears cuts would rattle the lion’s cage and trigger the military assisted transition.
I totally agree, change is coming be it from the mass uprising, military assisted transition or through peaceful democratic means because the economic and social situation in Zimbabwe is unsustainable.
The economic recovery was never going to be a walk in the park. Never! The task will be that much harder when a significant segment of the population is mentally blind, deaf and dumb because they were denied a decent education! The pressure for Zimbabwe to end the pariah state and start the hard work of rebuilding the nation from the ruins left by decades of Zanu PF misrule has never been greater than it is today!
It is a great pity that people like Takavafira Zhou and his colleagues in PTUZ have wasted decades chasing the living wage and failed to see that they would never get it as long as the country remained a pariah state. It has taken a long time for the reality on the ground to force them to open their eyes and see the bigger picture.
Zimbabweans from all walks of life have been aware of mismanagement, corruption, tyrannical oppression and rigged elections which have all earn the country it's pariah state status. A few Zimbabweans have dared voice their concerns about the evil in high places with only a tiny minority doing anything about it. As a rule of thumb, Zimbabweans have never seen it as their duty and responsibility to guard against misrule and to hold those who abuse the power and positions to account.
Takavarifa Zhou and his PTUZ, Peter Mutasa and his ZCTU, Doctors and their Associations, etc. have all ignored the reality of Zimbabwe being a pariah state, a failed state running on an empty tank, and have continued to demand a living wage. The penny has yet to drop in their empty heads that workers and society in general will only prosper in a country's resources are well managed. Pretending Zimbabwe is a well managed nation and not a pariah state is foolish.
Quadrupling the soldiers, Police, CIO, etc. wages is proof the Zanu PF regime has lost the plot and is now in panic mode. A 400% pay increase can only be justified when inflation is very high; we know that inflation has soared to 848%, by the regime's own admission. It will not be long before the penny drops in the empty heads of these security personal that their economic conditions are getting worse and worse, they are sinking into abject poverty just like the rest of us. When the penny finally drops they will no doubt think of another military assisted transition!
The November 2017 military assisted transition accomplished nothing of substance and hence the reason the second one is already long overdue.
The truth is as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state, there will be no meaningful economic recovery; a reality that has remained hidden in plain sight to many Zimbabweans out there!
Sometime one meets their destiny by the path they chose to avoid it! President Mnangagwa is trying to avoid another military assisted transition by pampering the armed services personal at the expense of education, health and even the national economic well being. Of course, this is only accelerating the country's economic and social demise making change imperative!
GOVERNMENT has awarded a multi-million dollar tender to a Chinese firm to replace a redundant aviation system following pressure exerted by the Joint Operations Command (JOC) to award the deal to a company drawn from a friendly nation.
In 2016, military, police and intelligence chiefs - who make up the JOC - covertly supported a Supreme Court challenge by Italian firm Selex ES to successfully overturn the US$33 million tender that was awarded to a Spanish firm - Indra Sistemas.
Among other reasons, the deal with Indra Sistemas was terminated on the grounds that the tender did not go through procedures as prescribed by law.
Indra Sistemas did not pass a critical security vetting process by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the Air Force of Zimbabwe.
Hailing from the West, which has slapped Zimbabwe with sanctions, securocrats had reservations over the Spanish entity.
The vulnerability of Zimbabwe's shambolic radar system was exposed when JOC hastily convened an urgent meeting in 2019 after the aviation system broke down, disrupting flights
JOC is the real power behind the throne and it is once again flexing its muscle. We all know that the Army and the Chinese have been close partners in the mining of diamonds for decades. The Army; as does the other arms of JOC, the Police, CIO and Prison Service; has a diamond mining concession so cleverly worded it is right to call it a “Licence to loot!”
The concession allows the holder to mine diamonds without keeping any record of the quality and quantity of diamonds obtained, to whom the diamonds are sold and for how much, who are the beneficiaries and how much they got, how the diamonds are shipped out of the country, etc. The principle reason for keeping no records in because the beneficiaries do not pay a single dollar in income or cooperate tax.
The beneficiaries of these looting licences are also exempted from a lifestyle audit! This is well and truly institutionalised looting!
The diamond mining concessions have worked so well for JOC and everyone else concerned they have been extended into other areas such as gold and platinum mining, fuel procurement, command agriculture and, the most recent, procurement of corona virus materials as exemplified by the Drax scandal.
Of course, the Army and their Chinese partners wanted this aviation project and whatever they want, they get!
GOVERNMENT yesterday said it was committed to ensuring better conditions of service for teachers after they pled incapacitation and demanded that their salaries be restored to the 2018 US$520 to US$550 levels.
In an interview, Primary and Secondary Education ministry spokesperson Taungana Ndoro said government was looking at all avenues possible to solve the teachers' grievances.
"We seek to provide quality, relevant, inclusive and wholesome education for all Zimbabweans while the government looks into the conditions of service of teachers. We support an improvement of the conditions of service as a ministry," Ndoro said.
Recently, government promised a 25% salary increment for civil servants, which they rejected.
Civil servants have also shot down a staggered 75% salary increase proposed by their employers, insisting on US dollar-indexed salaries.
In 2016, government promised that at least 100 000 civil servants countrywide would benefit from a residential stands scheme as part of efforts to incentivise them.
Again in 2018, two weeks before the crucial elections, government disclosed that the Public Service Commission in partnership with the National Social Security Authority had agreed on a $60 million public service housing facility for civil servants which would be managed through the National Building Society.
This included payment of the 17, 5% special civil service allowance and cash in-lieu of leave for teachers who had accrued more than 123 days' vacation leave.
In 2011, government also dangled a US$7 000 vehicle loan for civil servants payable after 10 years.
Government has been “looking” into the conditions of service of teachers and nurses for decades now and the conditions have got worse and worse. The same government has been looking into the conditions of service of the soldiers, Police, CIO and Prison Service staff and, whilst they are not great they are significantly better than that of teachers. The same government has also been looking into conditions of service of the ruling elite and the top brass in the security sector and they live in unparalleled luxury and comfort.
The reality is teachers, nurses and the other civil servants are being sacrificed and the wealth cream-off to feed the insatiable greed of the ruling elite and the top brass in the security services. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt incompetent and murderous tyrants able to rig elections to stay in power; nothing will change. Nothing!
Government will "look" into conditions of service of teachers and will see the conditions are getting worse and worse but will do nothing about it. Nothing will change. Nothing!
TEACHERS at various schools countrywide are reportedly reporting for duty only to mark the pupils' attendance registers, but are not conducting lessons as they continue piling pressure for better working conditions.
Teachers' unions yesterday told NewsDay that the educators had resolved to sit-in after government refused to restore their salaries to the pre-October 2018 levels when they earned between US$520 and US$550.
Amalgamated Rural Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe president Obert Masaraure confirmed the alleged sit-in.
The teachers can stage their sit-in but they can be certain of one thing they will not be paid any better because the country is broke!
Zanu PF has failed to revive the country’s economy and the regime has decided to sacrifice our education and health care services at the first to go. The regime is diverting resources to keep the security services going as long as possible. Zimbabwe is a failed state and what is happening now is the beginning of the end.
The teachers and the rest of Zimbabweans should now realise that as long as the country remains a pariah state there will be no economic recovery and no future.
No nation can survive without health care and by failing to educate children it means there nation has no future. The most important question now is for how long are we going to allow this madness to drag on? The longer it goes on, the deeper we are going to sink in this hell-hole and the harder it is going to be to dig ourselves out.
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