Schools Will Have To Pay For ECD Teachers, But Noone Will Be Allowed To Increase Fees: Minister Mavima

Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Paul Mavima has insisted that government has no money to pay the salaries of early childhood development (ECD) teachers. Mavima said that parents will have to pay for the teachers’ salaries through levies paid to the schools. However, the minister insisted that schools will not be allowed to increase their fees to cater for these salaries. Instead, according to the minister, School authorities will need to prioritise their funds effectively.

In an interview, with weekly publication The Standard, Mavima said:

As government, we are saying because of fiscal challenges we are going through, we are unable to recruit new ECD teachers at the moment.

This, however, does not affect those already on the job. Those ones will continue. We are saying, let parents come in and help by paying the remainder and this we will do in a systematic manner.

I am preparing a concept paper, which I will table in Cabinet soon to guide us on the proposal. Basically, we are saying schools in urban areas, those that can afford to pay ECD teachers can pay while the government will deploy its resources to areas that cannot. I am talking about rural areas.

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What we intend to do, we have schools that can afford to pay these ECD teachers in urban areas from their levies and government will then take care of those in rural areas.

Let us take an example of a school in Harare like Alex Park Primary School, it might need four ECD teachers and is charging $200 per term.

We are saying from that levy, let them recruit the ECD teachers and pay them so that government can then deploy those on its payroll to rural areas where people are unable to afford.

…No one will be disadvantaged as I said earlier on; the levies I am talking about already exist and are being paid by parents but not doing anything productive.

I am talking of money that is there but not being channelled to correct things. Schools have been charging levies like $200 per term and so on and so forth but in most cases, these monies end up being used to buy unwanted furniture or some non-productive projects. We are saying let that money, part of it, be channelled towards the ECD programme.

We have schools that have been buying furniture every two or three years and keep the old one in the store room even if the chairs are not wanted or worn out. This is the money we are saying must be channelled towards that.

No school will be allowed to increase school fees, let the existing fee structure remain but school authorities will need to re-configure their priorities.

More: The Standard