Teachers Refuse To Invigilate ZIMSEC Exams Without Payment Of Allowances

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) has written a letter to the Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) expressing displeasure over the council’s stance on payment of invigilation allowances to teachers. ZIMSEC had notified the union that payment of teachers is the duty of the Public Service Commission. Pindula News presents PTUZ’s letter to ZIMSEC dated 17 November 2021 addressed to ZIMSEC’s director. 

RE: INVIGILATION WITHOUT PAYMENT

We acknowledge receipt of your letter today responding to our letter, which we had also copied to other offices. It is therefore commendable that you have chosen to respond timeously to our letter.

However, we would like to express our displeasure with the response, in which your organization tries to wash its hands off the issue of payment for invigilation, choosing instead to engage in semantics. It is not untrue that the issue of payment for ZIMSEC duties has nothing to do with ZIMSEC, and that payment of teachers for your duties lies with their employer, the Public Service Commission. It would seem that both your organization and the PSC want to send teachers from pillar to post in the hope that we will tire of asking on the travesty of free invigilation.

We do remember that in the 2019 meeting you referred to, it was never agreed that payment for invigilation be left at the doorstep of the PSC. Rather ZIMSEC highlighted that it was underfunded and that its parent ministry, MOPSE and the PSC would appeal to Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to improve ZIMSEC’s financial position so that it could in a better position to pay invigilators. The reason why we were meeting with ZIMSEC is because we were aware, as we are still even now, that the running of public examinations is a preserve of ZIMSEC.

It is a fact that you pay item writers, who happen to be teachers, for work they do for your organization. You also pay school heads for examination management, and examiners for marking scripts, although they are also employed by the PSC. We are awake to the fact that ZRP details provide paid services also funded by ZIMSEC.

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By copy of this letter, we would like to advise you that since the payment for invigilation is, in your judgement, a matter between ourselves and our employer, our members will only report for invigilation of your work when we finish engaging with the employer.

Yours faithfully

R Majongwe

PTUZ Secretary-General

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