-serious corruption in teacher transfers
MILLICENT HUNGWE
MASVINGO RURAL-DESPITE THE English language being the world’s preferred language of commerce and trade, a big school in Masvingo District has gone for a full term without the teacher for the subject for forms 1 to 4.
The disturbing revelation emerged after a concerned parent sent an SMS to The Midweek Watch complaining about the unavailability of an English teacher at Ruvhure Secondary which is located about 15km from Masvingo City.
“Thanks Bhururu, pane nyaya yandinoda kuti mukainda paRuvuli Sec kwaBhani muibudise pachena, there is no English Teacher at that school from Form 1 to form 4 chikoro chese vana havasi kuita English as a subject bcse hapana mateacher English,” read the message.
Upon investigations it emerged that this is just a tip of the iceberg as the province is riddled with massive corruption concerning teacher transfers and posting as in some situations there is over staffing, understaffing and misplacements at both secondary and primary schools.
A source at the provincial education offices told this publication that the last English teacher at Revhure swapped with a Commerce subject teacher leaving the school without an English teacher.
The shortage of teachers for certain subjects has invited the ire of students, parents, and educators, who are worried about the impact on examination classes especially the impending June Zimbabwe School Examination Council.
Efforts to obtain a comments from the Masvingo Provincial Education Director (PED) Shylette Mhike were fruitless.
Director of Communications and Advocacy for the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Taungana Ndoro had not responded to questions sent on his whatsapp number by the time of posting the story.
Masvingo District Schools Inspector (DSI) Ismael Chigaba said he was in a meeting and repeated attempts were unsuccessful as the mobile phone was no longer reachable.
However, Progressive Teachers Union Zimbabwe (PTUZ) president Takavafira Zhou expressed shock at the situation. “It’s astonishing that a school can operate without an English teacher, especially when the headmaster has a responsibility to report such shortages for immediate attention,” Zhou stated.
Zhou emphasized that, in the interim, teachers can be temporarily allocated to classes while awaiting the appointment of a suitable English teacher, he urged the relevant authorities to address this critical shortage promptly to ensure that students receive the education they deserve.
The source at the provincial offices said the school head has been coming to the offices over the matter, but to no avail in the past three months.
He added that there is a lot of misplacement of teachers in the province where those who transfer are either not replaced or are replaced by the wrong subject teacher.
Overstaffing is said to be rampant in urban primary schools as officials get bribes to get places for teachers from rural areas into town, but sometimes they may fail to get them the vacancies resulting in overstaffing and understaffing in rural areas.
“Right now there is raging fire at St DonBosco Primary and Francis Aphiri Primary. DonBosco declared four teaching vacancies and the ministry sent the teachers immediately without communicating with the responsible authority and the teachers were sent back.
“The ministry was left with no choice but to deploy the teachers at Francis Aphiri, but the school head there refused to sign assumption of duty forms showing that the teachers started work in January leaving the ministry officials with an egg in their faces as they received bribes from the said teachers, but they are failing to fulfill part of their bargain.
“The DonBosco head also refused to sign the assumption of duty for the three teachers indicating they started work in January,” said the source.
The affected teachers are still at Francis Aphiri and the school is now overstaffed.
Lookout for more on the teacher transfer scandals in our next story as investigations are on going.
