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At the height of the economic hardships, thousands of Zimbabweans left their jobs to seek employment abroad as hyperinflation eroded their salaries.
Among these were teachers who saw no reason for reporting for duty when their earnings could not sustain their families. At one time, hyperinflation meant that the money which some workers got on payday, could not pay for the return trip home.

Under such circumstances, thousands felt it was better to stop reporting for work without following the proper procedures. According to government regulations, this is absconding from duty.

After government introduced multiple currencies in 2009, many of the civil servants who had left indicated a willingness to come back home and offer their services.

There was even a political will to re-engage thousands of civil servants who had left without following the proper procedures. A few lucky ones have since been re-engaged.

But the majority is still roaming the streets unemployed.
It is a cause for concern that some schools are being manned by untrained, also known as temporary teachers, yet thousands of qualified teachers are being denied a chance to offer their expertise by regulations which fail to recognise the reason why such a large number of workers “absconded’’ from duty.

According to a story carried in yesterday’s edition of Chronicle, at least 27,000 teachers left the civil service in the period prior to 2009 while only a handful of the 3,000 teachers who reapplied to join government service have been engaged, most of them because they have connections in the system.

The Civil Service Commission is citing regulations promulgated in 2000 to deal with errant civil servants who leave government service without notice. Under the regulations, such people have to undergo a disciplinary hearing to determine their suitability to be re-employed.

We believe that in the present case, these regulations should not apply. The regulations should also have a human face. These teachers did not leave the service because they were unpatriotic. They left because the conditions prevailing at the time did not make sense for one to continue reporting for duty.

The Civil Service Commission should relax the regulations to allow those who left due to economic hardships to be reabsorbed into the system. We are not saying that there should be a blanket relaxation of these regulations.

The CSC has files of all its employees and those who left because of disciplinary issues or to avoid disciplinary hearings obviously should not qualify for the reprieve.

Re-engaging these teachers can only be good for our education system. There are complaints that the poor pass rate being recorded by some schools is due to temporary teachers taking classes. Twelve percent of the 98,000 teachers employed by government are untrained.
Some of the teachers who left are veterans who can do wonders for the education system and improve pass rates.

If the CSC cannot on its own bypass the 2000 regulations to re-engage the teachers, there is need for the minister responsible to craft the necessary legislation that would allow these people to be taken back into service.

Five years is a long time to be procrastinating on the issue. Furthermore, it would create an administrative headache if all civil servants who left unceremoniously were to appear before disciplinary boards. It would take ages for the whole process to be completed.
Time has come for the government to bring closure to this issue so that the country moves forward.