By Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Secondary and Primary Education has said it will send a message that will be a deterrent to teachers conducting privately-paid extra lessons.
The Ministry said some teachers are not doing their work during normal learning hours to corruptly earn more income from desperate parents through extra lessons.
Ministry spokesperson Taungana Ndoro said the practice appeared to be particularly rife in Harare Metropolitan province where teachers were putting personal interests ahead of those of learners.
“The schools where you find issues of extra lessons are those schools in communities that are resourced but most of our schools are in the rural areas. In rural areas, it is nearly impossible to conduct paid-for extra lessons in places like Rushinga, Muzarabani, Gokwe, Nkayi, Bulilima and others. But go to the urban and metropolitan areas, Glen View, Highfield, Mabvuku, Mpopoma, Pumula, that’s where you start having this problem and we can count those number of schools. They are just a fraction so the integrity is still intact.
“We want to send a clear message that makes it a deterrent for anyone to be unethical. There are a lot of teachers, some of whom have 15 to 20 years of experience right now, who would never take money for extra lessons before but are now also doing it because quite a number of their colleagues are doing it. They have also joined the bandwagon. There are heads who were morally upright but because another head within their district is taking money for enrolment, they are also doing it. This is where we say we need deterrent prosecutions,” said Ndoro
His remarks comes at a time some teachers have been charging amounts ranging from US$3 to $5 per child per week for those in primary school and US$1 to $2 per subject per child at Secondary schools.
School heads seem to be overwhelmed by the situation with teachers resorting to sit ins citing poor remuneration.
