04 May 2022
Zimbabwe’s education is screaming for help, it has been abandoned and is suffocating under the yoke of austerity.
The government of Emmerson Mnangagwa consistently allocates a paltry 13% of national budget towards basic education, way below the 20% Dakar threshold. The net effect of under funding is;
- Slave wages for teachers rendering them incapacitated.
- Mass dropouts of learners as parents fail to foot the education bill.
- Collapse of infrastructure and lack of basic services in schools across the country.
- Unavailability of teaching and learning materials for the new curriculum.
In summary Zimbabwe’s classroom has closed shop. The Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, ARTUZ launched the #SaveOurEducationZw campaign in a desperate bid to mobilise citizens to demand adequate funding for our education.
The Union salutes all the Citizens who have taken heed of the call and participated in our multiple advocacy tactics. Our campaign has however attracted a massive backlash from a state which firmly believes in command tactics.
In the face of a repressive state we have to build Coalitions and make repression impossible!
It is against this background that ARTUZ is joining the 9 May 2022 protest organised by the Zimbabwe National Students Union, ZINASU. Students in tertiary institutions who are failing to pay fees are sons and daughters of the working class. The government cut spending on education transferring the burden of funding education to the shoulders of the either underpaid or unemployed working class.
We call upon Teachers to completely withdraw their labour on 09 May 2022. Parents are urged to keep their children at home. The broader working class is urged to take heed of this call and demand a living wage from the bosses.
Let’s stand as a class and make repression expensive! #OrganiseOrStarve
Obert Masaraure
ARTUZ President
[email protected]
+263776129336