Teachers chart the way forward

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), which organised the four-day conference being held at Harares Belvedere Teachers College, said it has brought together more than 200 educators drawn from the countrys 10 provinces.

We are using the conference to take stock of the situation in the education sector, including teachers salaries, the political environment, the constitution-making process and the healing process, PTUZ president Takavafira Zhou told ***The Zimbabwean.

The teachers were addressed by Education Minister David Coltart, Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Labour and Social Welfare Minister Paurina Mpariwa.

The conference is also being attended by representatives of regional teachers unions from Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia, some of whom have been in the country since the weekend.

We are hoping that the conference would articulate the teachers position on the various issues of interest to the profession as well as our contribution towards issues of nation-building, Zhou said.

Zimbabwes public education system was once highly rated and the envy of many across Africa, but a decade of political crisis and acute recession left the sector in disarray and without resources to maintain or develop infrastructure.

The countrys once brilliant public education sector is in a shambles, with the government unsure how many teachers or pupils were in schools and without cash to revive the schools or pay teachers.

Coltart conceded early this year that the countrys schools were derelict, with his ministry unable to establish how many teachers were in schools.

He said pleas to international donors for cash to pay teachers had not yielded much since the formation of the coalition government in February a situation that has triggered intermittent strikes by the countrys teachers.