Minister of Finance authorises the recruitment of 3000 teachers to deal with the shortage of 20000 teachers needed, and authorised the  recruitment of 350 university lecturers and personnel

“Treasury has authorised the recruitment of 3000 additional teachers in Zimbabwe in order to ease teacher shortage.” Ncube said. “Treasury has also authorized recruitment of about 350 university teaching staff and personnel to bolster university capacity. Key to improving service delivery.”

Ironically Ncube’s announcement comes at a time when the teachers under the banner of the Progressive Union of Zimbabwe have announced that they will not be going back to work if government does not meet their demands.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe Teachers Association chief executive Sifiso Ndlovu said the 3 000 teachers which government want to employ were too few considering that at least 20 000 new educators were needed to fill the existing gaps.

“Teachers must be employed as this is the right thing to do, but the figure is too low. There is very little excitement about this figure. We have a shortage of 19 000 teachers who need to be replaced according to the new curriculum. The pupil to teacher ratio is at 1:70 and sometimes goes up to 1: 101 in worst case scenarios. If we look at the budget it was not increased and is at a standstill,” Ndlovu said Byo24