By A Correspondent- 6000 teachers will be recruited by the government of Zimbabwe to help fill up the gap of teachers’ shortages that has been created due to the COVID-19 health guidelines to contain the pandemic.
This was revealed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education director of communications and advocacy, Mr Taungana Ndoro who said
We are recruiting about 6 000 teachers starting this term to cover for the workload which is coming with the trimming of classes. We have around 9 000 schools in the country so we need the teachers to take the extra classes that will be created.
Addressing the issue of school fees, Ndoro explained that the government had scrapped fees for the second term because:
….because in the first place there was no Term Two to talk about. School authorities must follow Government directives. The official school calendar was Term One and this one where schools are opening tomorrow. So, there was no Term Two in the first place, and the Government position is that no school must therefore demand fees for a term that was not announced and approved by Government.
Ndoro said schools that needed to increase fees were supposed to follow laid down procedure to do so:
There is a procedure that needs to be followed before fees are increased. The ministry only deals with an agreed position from the school and the parents. So, what comes before the ministry for approval is a position that would have been agreed between the parents and the school. Only then can they bring it to the ministry for consideration. So, we are saying it is high time that schools and parents settle on one agreed position
Public schools will open their doors for the classes that will sit for their final year in December tomorrow despite teachers declaring that they are incapacitated