adminStories by Morris Mtisi
Head -to-Head is not an easy intellectual confrontation. Here I intend to lock horns with people who matter in the education sector and ask questions those below ask with their mouths shut and pretend they don’t have at the back of their minds. It is eye-to-eye, head-to-head interviews not many would want to conduct head-on and hope to exchange genuine smiles between interviewer and interviewee thereafter. Join me every Friday when I travel on this difficult journey to have answers to difficult questions no one dares ask about education.
My first guest in the hot chair is non-other than the Manicaland Education Director (PED), Edward Shumba:
MM: Welcome to HEAD-TO-HEAD, Mr Shumba.
PED: Welcome sir and thank you for coming.
MM: Heads rolled and continue to roll in the forensic audits still going on around schools in Manicaland and other provinces in Zimbabwe. In one instance the audit investigation is alleged to have unearthed a school head and his bursar who blew nearly a million dollars between them. The facts revealed in these audits are frightening, are they not?
PED:True, the facts are frightening. However I’m not aware of the million dollars embezzlement of school funds. In cases where misappropriation of funds occurred, the law will take its course. Let those that have wronged the schools face the music.
MM: In your personal assessment of the rate of embezzlement of funds by school heads, what do you think are the reasons for such rot amongst learned school administrators who are not only supposed to know better but live by example in the communities their schools exist?
PED: I believe that this could be a result of (1) ignorance (2) greed or (3) a feeling that they won’t be discovered. To this effect, the province has gone on a staff development programme on financial management. We hope it will assist.
MM: Can you answer the following question as an ordinary gentleman and father with family and children…not as PED-Manicaland: How do you feel to lead officers, employees, whose salaries are an embarrassment and mockery of their education and dignity?
PED: I feel guilty about this. However we should not resort to wrong methods. We should do our best so that the employer feels guilty when he looks at the salaries and the good work done.
MM: PED: It is unfortunate sir that you seem to be saying teachers are paid for being good boys and girls and government must be waited upon to feel guilty about poor salaries. Well, I hope that guilt comes, if it ever does, sooner rather than later. My question is how do you seriously expect school heads and teachers to work hard and honestly to produce desired results when they are so quietly disgruntled and reeling below the poverty datum line?
PED: Teaching is a calling. Salaries become cosmetic and secondary. As such a teacher should be happy to see his or her products. I’m not, however, justifying low salaries.
MM: You seem sir, to justify low salaries if you say salaries become cosmetic and secondary because teaching is a calling. It is indeed a calling to many teachers, but a job for many more and they want a decent salary. Food for thought. My next question is, when you and your inspectorate do routine rounds in the schools do you sometimes stop investigating how teaching and learning are going on, and concentrate on the welfare of teachers and school heads who manage these schools for you and eventually for government?
PED: The issues pertaining to teachers’ welfare are covered by Unions and Associations. However, we share and sympathise with the teachers and tell them that. Of course this must not be given as reason to spoil the name of the noble profession.
MM: I’m not sure if teachers want sympathy from anyone more than a decent salary; but is it correct, do you think, to think that one of the reasons education standards are going down in Zimbabwe especially in the context of pass rate, is unhappy and disillusioned teachers and school heads who every day feel like donkeys whose masters suffocate them under overloads but hardly feed them? Every teacher and school head feels this way, if you didn’t know, but will never say so in public. You are leading a whole bunch of unhappy and disillusioned education policy implementers. Angry would not be a wrong word to describe most of them?
PED: True, a disgruntled worker would not give the best. Hence we have tried to come to terms with the teachers by emphasizing on the noble nature of teaching. We have even asked them to produce more in these hard times so as to appeal to the employer’s conscience.
MM: Do you frankly think school heads and teachers are free government employees who are free to ask you or government what they think and how they feel about their job? Or do you sometimes feel there is need for radical transformation in the way education is administered, especially in the area of teachers’ freedom of speech and freedom at the work place?
PED: While I might feel so, these are labour issues and my hands are tied. But confrontation might not yield desired results. I would go for dialogue in a very sincere manner from both ends.
MM: Mr Shumba thank you for your time and letting me enjoy the warmth of your office and the wisdom of the director of education in you.
PED: Thank you sir. It is my hope that this is the beginning of dialogue. As you get more issues, let me have them for further discussion which I’m sure will benefit the public, especially those employed in the education sector and parents or guardians who are keen investors in the sector.
MM: I certainly have more questions to ask and do hope I will engage you again soon to speak for those who dare not open their mouths, but love you and their country and will do everything every day to uplift Zim-education in their different offices and ways.
PED: Thank you sir.
Online Reporter