The government held crunch meetings with teachers on Friday night in a bid to end the week-long teachers’ strike. This comes as teachers unions claimed that over 80 per cent of their members were on strike.
Teachers have been on strike since February 5 over poor salaries. In meetings held previously, the government said that it had no capacity to pay salaries in US dollars or to raise them significantly.
Speaking to Newsday on Friday, Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) secretary-general Raymond Majongwe confirmed the meeting. He said:
Apparently, things have changed with regards to the future of our struggle. We are meeting with the government tonight.
The reason for the meeting is to see how best we can salvage this situation. We have been saying we want to engage the government and the fact that they have (agreed) to meet the education sector, which is on strike, the meeting will liberate ourselves.
We can’t pretend that things are right. Pupils need to learn yes, but teachers also need to be able to care for their families. We are saying time for dialogue is now.
Why is this Zimbabwean gvt so cruel and evil to its people. Prices of commodities are shooting up daily but salaries are stagnant. The gvt claims it has no money when they can afford to buy luxurious cars for chiefs and themselves, they use private jets to travel around the world for useless summits and first class health services whilst we the povo are forced to ill equiped hospitals. Our intelligence being insulted daily that the bond is equivalent to US when they know exactly that its not the case. We are a cursed nation truly just because of a few selfish individuals. Nxaaa frustrating. The strike does not affect their children who get quality education abroad or at expensive private colleges locally which we the povo will never dream of sending our children to.