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Midlands Correspondent
THE Zimbabwe Schools Development Association (ZSDA) says it will reward best performing teachers as part of their incentive package following the scrapping of incentives by the government recently.ZSDA president Xolisani Dlamini said the organisation had passed a resolution to reward best performing teachers in an endeavour to improve standards of education and to motivate teaching staff.
Incentives were introduced by parents during the economic meltdown in 2008 to retain trained teachers who were leaving the country in search of greener pastures and the move was then sanctioned by the government.
“Now that the government has scrapped the incentives, we sat down and passed a new resolution to motivate teachers by awarding best performing teachers at each and every school,” Dlamini said, on the sidelines of the ZSDA’s general congress held at Midlands State University over the weekend.
“This will be done at the schools prize giving ceremonies. We don’t want to lose the momentum that we have gathered over the years. We will also mobilise funds to incentivise teachers. Our aim is to improve the standards of education as well as improving pass rates in schools.”
Dlamini applauded the government for freezing school fees increases this year and for barring school development committees from sending pupils away for failing to pay fees.
“When the government resolved to freeze school fees, it was looking at the economic situation in the country and wanted to make education affordable,” he said.
“Most parents aren’t working, while some are being paid slightly above the poverty datum line.”
The incentives caused problems in schools, with children of parents who could not afford to pay being disadvantaged.
Online Reporter