It also emerged that the government has asked the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) to transport teachers to and from school as part of strategies to ensure that schools had a full complement of teachers during the commencement of the first term of 2009.
But thousands of Zimbabwean teachers went on strike for more pay as the new school term started on Tuesday, highlighting the country's deepening crisis amid uncertainty over the future of a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition.
Secretary for Education, Sports and Culture Stephen Mahere in a circular to provincial education directors, said disciplinary measures should be taken against all the teachers that failed to report for duty when schools open on 27 January.
Where teachers absent themselves from duty or turn up but fail to perform their normal duties due to work stoppage, strike action, go slow or sit-in, head offices should invoke the relevant provisions of the Public Service Regulation in line with provisions of the Statutory Instrument Number 1 of 2000, Mahere said.
He said provincial education directors should freeze salaries of teachers that absented themselves from duty for 14 days and action taken to discharge them after 30 days of absence.
Heads of offices should also bee reminded that a member who returns before the expiry of the 14 days should be made to account for their absence and if need be, member should be charged accordingly, said Mahere.
To ease transport problems for the poorly paid teachers the government has asked ZUPCO to ferry teachers to and from school and charge fares in local currency.
A brief tour of government schools in Harare and surrounding areas by ZimOnline reporters on Tuesday showed there was no learning taking place, with hundreds of children seen trooping back home because there were no teachers to conduct lessons.
The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) – the two unions for the country's teachers – said their members had heeded calls not to report for duty until the government agreed to pay salaries in hard cash.
But union leaders also said some teachers had stayed home simply because they did not have money for bus fare after exhausting their meagre salaries.
Teachers unions want the lowest paid teacher to earn about US$2 300 per month, joining nurses and doctors who have also been boycotting work demanding to be paid in hard cash to cushion them against runaway inflation.
With its value eroded by the world's highest inflation of more than 231 million percent, the Zimbabwe dollar is nearly worthless and every worker, consumer or trader is increasingly shunning the currency in favour of hard cash.
A collapsed currency is the most visible sign of Zimbabwe's deepening economic and humanitarian crisis that is marked by acute shortages of food and basic commodities.
Zimbabwe’s crisis is also seen in a cholera epidemic that the World Health Organisation says has infected nearly 60 000 people and killed close to 3 000 others since it began last August.
Mugabe, opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, who heads a breakaway faction of the MDC, agreed last September to form a power-sharing government, sparking hope that Zimbabwe could finally emerge from its crisis.
But the deal has failed to take off because Mugabe and Tsvangirai cannot agree over control of key ministries and other top government positions.
Tsvangirai's MDC said in a statement after the Southern African Development Community (SADC)s summit in Pretoria that it would make known its final position on power sharing on Friday after a meeting of its national executive council in Harare. – ZimOnline