BY MIRIAM MANGWAYA
TEACHERS’ unions have called on government to suspend the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) examinations immediately amid reports that more than 250 school heads and teachers had tested positive of Covid-19 as of yesterday.
An undisclosed number of educators around the country have succumbed to the deadly virus although authorities have not collated and released statistics of teachers that have died so far.
Teachers’ representatives who spoke to The Standard said the figures could be way higher than are being presented due to limited capacity of schools to conduct their own tests.
Government last week reopened schools for Zimsec candidates and suspended classes for the rest of the learners.
Teachers have been petitioning government to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) and other necessary requirements to protect them from the marauding virus, but their demands have not been met.
Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (Ptuz) secretary-general Raymond Majongwe said there were reports that some school heads and teachers were not disclosing their Covid-19 statuses, which exposed fellow workers and students to the virus.
In towns and cities, pupils and teachers are having challenges in accessing the recommended Zupco buses to ferry them to their schools because the government has not allocated specific buses for that.
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As a result, learners are resorting to private transport which may not abide by the required health protocols.
Chaos has marred the Zimsec examinations due to transport problems as some candidates arrived late for examinations and the Primary and Secondary Education ministry allowed them to write their exams in separate rooms.
Teachers unions’ leaders said it was worrisome that pupils coming for examinations were admitted into schools without being tested for Covid-19 yet there was a possibility that during the holidays, some could have been in contact with relatives from South Africa where there is a new variant of the virus.
“The situation in schools is very worrisome, particularly in rural schools where authorities are facing challenges in meeting the required health protocols,” Manuel Nyawo, president of the Zimbabwe National Teachers’ Union (Zinatu), said.
“The situation has been worsened by the recently imposed lockdown where most school heads are having difficulty transporting sanitisers and testing kits and other donated Covid-19 equipment from established centres. Government declared education an essential service, but failed to provide PPE to the facilitators.”
According to the union leaders, disgruntled teachers are abdicating their duties to enforce adherence to Covid-19 protocols amongst pupils. They feel cheated and used as their demands for US dollar salaries have been dismissed as impossible by the government.
“At most government schools, it is real disaster as students are not even wearing masks. The underfunded rural schools cannot even afford testing kits.
Government schools are having challenges in observing social distancing due to over-enrolment and lack of infrastructure,” Nyawo added.
Health and Child Care deputy minister John Mangwiro said he had not yet been given an update of the current situation in schools.
“I haven’t yet received statistics on the situation in schools,” Mangwiro said and referred questions to a director in his ministry.
Asked on what the government was doing to resolve the health crisis in schools, Isaac Phiri, a director in the health ministry responsible for the Education ministry, said the government postponed opening of schools for all other learners except examination candidates to curb the spread of the virus.
“Government suspended the opening of schools. As of the teachers who have tested positive to Covid-19, authorities in the ministry of Primary and Secondary Education would be better placed to respond to that,” Phiri said.
But Majongwe said the ministry of Health was running away from its responsibility and shoving the burden to the “ill-prepared” Education ministry. He said the government was not making efforts to address the situation but was further worsening the crisis by replacing Covid-19 positive teachers. This had resulted in schools becoming hot spots of Covid-19.
“At least 170 Zimsec examiners have tested positive to the virus. No proper planning was done prior to reopening of schools to protect workers from the virus. In other countries, workers above the age of 58 have been exempted from duty to show commitment to saving lives. Government is hiding figures of those who have tested positive; they are hiding behind the finger,” Majongwe said.
Obert Masaraure of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers’ Union (ARTUZ) also said there were no precautionary measures which were being taken in schools to ensure that Covid-19 positive teachers did not continue mingling with pupils.
“Schools have no capacity to adhere to standard operating procedures,” he said.
“The government has failed to roll out support to our schools through providing the required PPE. Because teachers and pupils do not have other necessities such as masks, we are witnessing the mass transmission of the virus. We have received cases of 63 schools where teachers admit that almost everyone in the school is showing symptoms, but no one has been tested,” Masaraure said.
A teacher who recently tested positive to Covid-19 recounted his ordeal to The Standard on condition of anonymity. He said going to work under the current conditions in the Education ministry was like committing suicide.
“To continue going to work under such circumstances is dicing with death” he said. “Attending to pupils, whose status you don’t even know is like taking poison because the consequences are very grave. You catch the virus. It is frightful that the salary that I am earning is not enough to foot the medical bills now that I am sick.”
The teacher said what was more troubling was that instead of worrying about the sick teachers, government was addressing the situation by replacing the teachers who tested positive.
