By A Correspondent- The Government has warned teachers who are not reporting for duty citing “incapacitation” that the “no work, no pay” principle will be invoked against them.

Schools opened for the first term on 7 February 2022 amid reports that the majority of school heads and teachers in urban areas did not report for work.

Director of communications in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Taungana Ndoro, said it is the normal procedure “the world over” that sanctions are imposed on employees who fail to report for work.

Said Ndoro:

The normal procedure is that if there is someone who does not report for duty, the normal procedure the world over is that there are remedial actions that are taken by an organisation and one of the measures is not to pay the absent teachers as they might not be part of the ministry anymore.

Ndoro said 60 per cent of teachers nationwide reported for duty on Monday while some educators were still on their way to their workplaces.

Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) president Richard Gundane teachers may not have travelled to their workstations because they don’t have money for bus fare.

He said:

Those who do not have boarding transport, or who live far away from their workstation might not have reported for duty because they have genuine concerns that they do not have money to do that.

But what we have observed is that there are educators who genuinely reside in the schools such as boarding schools and rural schools and a few who reside in houses that are near urban schools.

Those ones you will find that they are there.

Teachers’ unions declared incapacitation just before schools opened. They are demanding that the Government restore their pre-2018 salaries of roughly US$540 per month.-statemedia