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Bulawayo Bureau
There will not be automatic bonus payments for senior civil servants, but will only receive the 13th cheque depending on their work output in line with performance-based contracts signed earlier in the year, Primary and Secondary Education Permanent Secretary Mrs Tumisang Thabela has said.
Last year, Government introduced performance-based contracts for Cabinet ministers, Permanent Secretaries and other heads of public entities including local authority chief executive officers and town clerks to promote accountability to taxpayers.
Public officials signed performance-based contracts to ensure that they meet set targets as they are expected to drive President Mnangagwa’s vision of transforming the country into an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
The Government normally awards the 13th cheque to its workers in November.
Addressing educationists from Matabeleland during the dissemination workshop on the Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP) 2021-2025 and the Education Amendment Act in Bulawayo last Friday, Mrs Thabela said Government was determined to ensure public servants delivered on their mandate.
ESSP speaks to policies that are going to guide the education sector until 2025 in sync with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS 1).
The meeting was attended by educators including provincial education directors, district schools’ inspectors, school development committee chairperson, teachers’ unions as they unpacked developments in the education sector.
Mrs Thabela said all senior civil servants will have to justify why they have to be paid bonuses considering the performance contracts that they signed. She said they received notification from the Government last Thursday that beginning this year, directors and grades above directors, will not automatically get bonuses.
“If you are a director or grade above, you are going to be assessed according to your performance and be given a performance bonus if you deserve it,” said Mrs Thabela.
The Government circular indicates that senior employees who have failed to meet targets will not be paid bonuses.
“If you don’t meet the targets which you set yourself with your supervisor which met the minimum expectations then you might have to go and tell your children this year that there is no bonus starting with your Permanent secretary. So, the only people who are safe are those who said they are a deputy director or acting deputy director,” she said.
The education sector, Mrs Thabela said, has a responsibility to equip leaners with skills to face societal challenges beyond the classroom.
She said in doing so no child should be left behind as education should help nurture all the pupils’ talents.
“The nation looks upon us to make sure that we develop all its children in a way that guarantees it of a positive future. So, each school is therefore expected to make sure that each child or each adult who walks into those gates gets an education product that guarantees that they are going to get their fullest potential in the area in which they are most capable,” she said.
“Our job is to make sure that we fully understand each learner, their aptitudes, their flairs, their abilities and to develop those abilities fully.”
Days are gone where teachers would retort that “I will go with those that are going” and neglecting the disadvantaged learners, Mrs Thabela said.
“Now, all children have a destiny and our role is to help them reach that destiny by being a catalyst that helps them to get them there. The ESSP defines what we say we are going to do as an education sector,” said Mrs Thabela.
She said the education ministry is expected to produce children that are fit for the 21st century market, world of work and world of living.
This means learners are able to apply what they learn in schools to real life situations, said Mrs Thabela.
She said the ministry has to address the issue where some schools have been recording zero pass rates.
“We have to change the way that our schools perform so that we get rid of this animal which has been referred to as the zero-pass rate school. I keep saying, such schools are frightening because they are telling us that they do not exist. If you are zero it means you are not there as PEDs, as DSIs my challenge is to make sure that we eradicate those schools that don’t exist and make sure that we are relevant to the communities and their aspirations,” said Mrs Thabela.
She said the education sector should prepare examination classes for the coming public examinations that start in two weeks.
Mrs Thabela said the ministry expects to have improved Zimbabwe School Examination Councils (Zimsec) results as the education sector was not heavily impacted on by Covid-19 pandemic like the previous years.
“This is a clear sign that children now appreciate that we appreciate them as people. As one Tsholotsho young lady challenged us, ‘the wrong thing about you Mrs Thabela and your ministry is that you are interested in what I don’t know not what I know. You are busy asking me about Pythagoras theory and other things,'” said Mrs Thabela.
“Have you ever come to the netball pitch and see that I do very well.’ I think we need to listen to that child and start appreciating these skills and the gift of these children and make sure that at each of our schools we guarantee success.”
Online Reporter