No head, no pay

Stephen Mpofu Perspective
Those tasked by the relevant authority to carry out a head count of teachers among civil servants appear to have done a shoddy work of it and may have left the ruling party and its government in an invidious position from which it might be difficult to come out without ugly bruises to the images of both.

Surely teachers on annual vacation, on maternity or sick leave or study leave must have completed relevant forms to release them and deposited these with their heads or deputies for onward transmission directly to their ministry in Harare or through regional offices so that when their heads were not counted that should not have meant, as it would appear in the prevailing circumstances, that they were regarded as ghost teachers on the government payroll.

And anyway, why did not the heads of the schools where the teachers numbering 3,000 vouch for the official absence of the teachers working under them, or was the teachers’ non-presence when the head-counters pitched up regarded by the schools’ administrators as good riddance, or was the removal of those not found at their schools from the government payroll premeditated or was it inadvertent?

Whatever the motive might or might not have been that head count saga left the teachers affected and their union leaders seething with anger, as must be the case with parents who must have found themselves at odds with those who authorised the head count that went haywire for virtually striking the teachers affected off their jobs, thereby disadvantaging the school children taught by the latter.

This is quite apart from the demoralisation suffered by the teachers in question even though they remain at their schools without pay because those who look to them as breadwinners are likely to experience torrid times without the usual hot meal on the table, or pocket money, until such a time as the teachers in question are reinstated on the government pay sheet.

Should it take long to rectify the mistake — if indeed axing the teachers from the payroll was a mistake — does this mean pregnant teachers must in future carry on with their work even when they are due for delivery and go into labour in their classrooms fearing to be penalised once again by taking maternity leave?

And the sick — must they soldier on and risk collapsing or dying right before their charges due to fears that if they go away on sick leave they might be penalised a second time?

As for the study leave that some teachers affected had taken when their colleagues were counted as being present on the job and retained on the employers wage bill — is it not their employer’s policy that workers should improve themselves through study in order for them to deliver quality service to the state?

No one knows for sure, but the head count in point here might impact the wider Zimbabwean public by rendering the teaching profession as a no-go area, in which case it might in future be difficult for students to choose teaching as a career believing, with or without justification, that the profession is replete with pitfalls, citing the controversial head count as a study case for them.

This pen believes, however, that the damage caused to both the teachers affected as well as to their employer is certainly not beyond repair and so some people somewhere must eat humble pie and say sorry, what happened to the teachers was not intended if, indeed, that was not the case.

The teachers affected no doubt feel that their image and pride as committed public servants were savaged by the teams that went out to affirm the existence of teachers in their jobs. But be that as it might, a genuine show of contrition by the powers that be cannot fail to thaw the anger of the workers affected.

After all, it is said “to err is human, to forgive divine”.