Our teachers learn a hard lesson

Striking school staff across the nation face intimidation, beatings and arrest - how long can they hold out?

The Zimbabwe teachers strike rumbles on into its third day this morning, and as we have come to expect, it is noticeable for, first, the bravery of those on strike, and second, the brutality of the state forces in their attempts to defeat them.

The strike is remarkable for the fact that this is the first time our two main teaching unions, who are usually implacably opposed, have joined forces. Even the normally state-aligned Zimbabwe Teachers Union (ZIMTA) has declared that its members will stay out until government accedes to their demands.

Education minister Eaneas Chigwedere is talking mildly about reaching a compromise, but meanwhile his agents, the state security thugs, are going into action. The result is appalling brutality, arrests and bullying. I know. I've seen it.

As I walked into the grounds of a Harare secondary school on Tuesday I saw three uniformed policemen drag a screaming young female teacher out of the building and throw her to the ground. She joined three male mambers of staff already detained. Then without warning the police attacked all four with batons.

The teachers managed to scramble away, and the cops turned their attention to the school headmaster, arresting him, putting him in handcuffs, and driving him away in a truck already half-full of scared-looking men - other head teachers, I was subsequently told.

I spoke to the four teachers, who had come to school only to supervise their pupils, and they told me that when the police arrived they pretended to be teaching, because they had heard that other schools had been raiding. The police were not fooled, and the beating was the result.

Even teachers who stay at home are targets for the security forces, with ten being arrested and locked up on Tuesday in Harare alone. Raymond Majongwe, Secretary General of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) told me that by last night he had received four death threats on the phone.

But the teachers are desperate, and as I write they remain determined. Frankly they have no choice. They cannot live on their salaries. Currently the basic monthly salary for a primary and secondary teacher is Z$2.6 - enough to buy one two-litre container of cooking oil on the black market.

Teachers also get housing and transport allowances, but these are also hopelessly inadequate. And of course all remuneration becomes daily more worthless as inflation rampages out of control.

In developed countries governments often proclaim that education is their top priority. The only priority for our government is to cling to power, by violence if necessary. Our brave teachers have a lesson for us all.

Comments

[Dan Pallant]

I say bring back Ian Smith! It was all better under the whites, no?