Hundreds of Zimbabwean teachers demanding better pay stayed at home on Monday, as schools reopened after six months of coronavirus restrictions.<\/p>\n
At the Warren Park High School in a western working class suburb of Harare, dozens of students waited for their teachers in vain at an unfinished school building.<\/p>\n
Some wore face masks. A 20-litre bucket of hand sanitiser was placed at the school entrance.<\/p>\n
At another government school in the upper class Avondale district, no teachers were in sight and primary pupils played outside classrooms.<\/p>\n
Teachers “did not turn up for duty,” Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of one of the country’s largest unions, the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Majongwe said teachers battle to “survive” and that they can’t even afford to send their own children to school.<\/p>\n
Teachers’ salaries, he said, have been heavily eroded by inflation — which stands at over 700 percent — to an average equivalent of $40 a month, down from $550 in October 2018.<\/p>\n
“Forty dollars is an insult. Teachers have lost their ranking in society. It’s actually an insult to be a teacher. It’s a curse,” he said.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe is being buffeted by its worst economic crisis in over a decade and is grappling with hyperinflation.<\/p>\n
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Hundreds of Zimbabwean teachers demanding better pay stayed at home on Monday, as schools reopened after six months of coronavirus restrictions. At the Warren Park High School in a western working class suburb of Harare, dozens of students waited for their teachers in vain at an unfinished school building. Some wore face masks. A 20-litre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":19227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[246,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-28251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-community","9":"tag-school-fees","10":"tag-striking-teachers"},"yoast_head":"\n