Government Fires 3000 Teachers

According to various reports, the Zimbabwean government has fired 3000, qualified teachers currently engaged as contract workers. These teachers had been employed on yearly contracts.

After they were ignored by the government, hundreds of teachers were at the Civil Service Commission (CSC) offices in Harare yesterday, trying to follow up on their applications after there was no word from the government.

As for those ministers in charge, they responded with rather vague answers when questions were raised about the dismissal and silence from the government.

Prisca Mupfumira, Minister of Public Services, said that she would have to request written questions on the dismissals and that her Education Ministry counterpart, Lazarus Dokora, was still on leave.

The only alleged reasoning for the mass dismissal was that the department was allegedly told to only readmit a few teachers, and this action was done ‘based on the date they applied’ [sic].

“…We were told to readmit only a few and the criterion that was used on whose contract will be renewed and whose will not, was based on the dates the teachers applied,” an official at the CSC offices said.

“…Those who applied before October 31, 2015 had their contracts converted to indefinite while those who did so later and are in the majority, have no jobs,” he continued.

Many of the teachers who were at the CSC said that they were never informed to apply before a certain date:

“…[sic] We have been told that we sent our applications late hence our contracts will not be replaced yet we used to apply at the end of the year after the contract expires…We were never informed about the new requirement and we do not know what to do,” the teacher said.