EDITORIAL COMMENT: PSC must urgently address staff shortages

On Wednesday we carried a shocking story that highlights the grave impact of the Government’s staff rationalisation exercise that includes a freeze in recruitment and promotions and abolishment of thousands of posts. If a civil servant dies or goes on leave he or she is not replaced, meaning that authorities at the institutions have to come up with local solutions to ensure that service delivery does not suffer. In addition to this, the Government recently stopped paying salaries for teachers deployed at private schools, a decision through which about $20 million would be saved every year. The drastic measures are some of the recommendations set out in the Civil Service Audit of 2015.

Two schools in Hwange District, Matabeleland North, said the provincial education director, Mrs Boithatelo Mnguni, were operating — if this can be regarded as operating at all — with a teacher each. The teachers at the respective schools are teaching Grades one to six.

“We have two schools in Hwange District that have been operating with a single teacher teaching Grades One to Six,” she said. “If you close your eyes for a minute, you can imagine what is happening in those schools.”

There has been similar disquiet in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development where the Government is moving to abolish 8 000 posts. The Public Service Commission (PSC) said in a July 29 memo to the Permanent Secretary, Mr Ringson Chitsiko, that of the 19 235 posts in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, 8 252 had been scrapped.

He responded 13 days later requesting a review of the blanket approach. He said his ministry has a programme to expand its activities to recover and develop the agriculture sector which could be adversely affected by the removal of the posts.

To achieve a balance between the need for cost containment on one hand and ensuring that activities in the ministry go on, he recommended a reduction in the number of working days for some staff where payment could be on a pro rata basis, abolition of all vacant posts, retiring all non-critical staff aged 60 years and above and maintaining the current freeze on the replacement of these staff upon retirement, resignation or death.

While the staff rationalisation programme will pose challenges in all ministries we find it most urgent for the Government to move with speed to attend to situations such as the Hwange District one. There is no teacher who can adequately handle six classes at the same time. It is simply impossible. The Hwange teachers, despite their appreciable commitment, would be simply scrapping along and the pupils will not be well served.

It goes without saying that with the economy performing so poorly, the Government has no choice but to implement the belt-tightening strategy. No government can run efficiently when it spends 85 percent of its revenue on salaries, hence the need to reduce the wage bill.

The Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Prisca Mupfumira says the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is exempt from the radical measures given its strategic nature and also the fact that there is already a critical shortage of teachers.

“There’s an acute shortage of teachers in the education ministry and we agreed that the ministry should be allowed to employ teachers and headmasters where there is a need,” said Minister Mupfumira.

The same waiver should have been accorded to the Ministry of Health and Child Care as well, given its centrality to the people’s welfare. One or two other ministers should be enjoying the waiver too for the same reasons.

However, we suggest that the PSC must move with greater speed to recruit teachers to prevent cases where a teacher takes six classes for the many subjects pupils at primary school learn.

We say this because the way Mrs Mnguni articulated the impact of the staff rationalisation exercise in her province, indicates that there are still challenges in recruitment and replacement of educators even though her ministry enjoys an exemption. Her account shows that in effect, the staffing situation in her ministry, or at least in her province, is no different from other ministries who are not exempt from the austerity measures.

We can reasonably assume that there could be worse situations elsewhere. Therefore, we implore the PSC to quickly address the gaps by filling the vacancies so that pupils’ access to education is not unduly compromised.

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