Primary and Secondary Education Minister Ambassador Cain Mathema was Wednesday left with an egg on the face after the Unemployed Teachers’ Association of Zimbabwe (UTA) publicly dissociated its members from remarks by the Minister insinuating that 10 000 ‘qualified, but unemployed’ teachers are on standby waiting to replace their employed colleagues who have declared incapacitation.

Minister Mathema

Since the reopening of schools for the Third Term Monday this week, the majority of Zimbabwe teachers have not been going to work citing incapacitation due to poor working conditions and low salaries.

On Tuesday, Minister Mathema told state media that the striking teachers were going to be replaced by the 10 000 teachers who were on standby, in the event that the employed teachers continued with their downing of tools.

UTA, which boasts of a 37 000 national membership, said Minister Mathema’s ‘threats of firing incapacitated teachers and replacing them with a 10 000 figure he just picked up from nowhere exposes his inefficiency in running the most decorated human resource producing Ministry.’

“As unemployed teachers, we are not desperate to an extent of being used to fight against our better future. We are not a reserve labour force.

Ambassador Cain Mathema must stop hallucinating and come back to mother Earth to face the reality, he must first pay teachers a salary of USD 520 and absorb all 37000 unemployed teachers into the system to reduce the existing gap of 90 000 teachers that is hindering quality of our Education,” said UTA in a statement.

Read the full statement below:

UTA stands in solidarity with incapacitated teachers.

30/09/2020

The Unemployed Teachers Association of Zimbabwe, UTA opposes and disassociates itself from the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Ambassador Cain Mathema’s claims in the state media that he has put in place 10 000 unemployed teachers to replace the incapacitated teachers.

As Unemployed Teachers Association we stand in solidarity with the incapacitated teachers, we cannot allow ourselves to be used by the government to totally destroy the dignity of teachers by selling out the struggle.

Ambassador Cain Mathema must know that we maintain a database of all unemployed graduate teachers from universities and colleges across the country.
Our current database has 37 000 unemployed graduate teachers.

Therefore, his threats of firing incapacitated teachers and replacing them with a 10 000 figure he just picked up from nowhere exposes his inefficiency in running the most decorated human resource producing Ministry.

Teachers must be paid a living wage that compensates the cost of acquiring the knowledge they have, the labour they are supplying in schools in developing the country and the maintenance of their dignity to continuously motivate learners on the importance of education.

As unemployed teachers, we are not desperate to an extent of being used to fight against our better future. We are not a reserve labour force.

Ambassador Cain Mathema must stop hallucinating and come back to mother Earth to face the reality, he must first pay teachers a salary of USD 520 and absorb all 37000 unemployed teachers into the system to reduce the existing gap of 90 000 teachers that is hindering quality of our Education.

We are mobilising all unemployed teachers to march to Ministers Cain Mathema and Mthuli Ncube’s offices in solidarity with our incapacitated brothers, and lastly to the Ministry of Public Service demanding our employment.

Injure One Injure All

UTA Information desk +263776973293/ 719973293

Facebook page: Unemployed Teachers Association
Twitter @UTA_Zim

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