Dokora must consider our children

The memories of the economic hardships experienced in 2008-9 send shivers down the spine of everybody who eked out a living honestly. Nobody would want a repeat of the same save for those who filthily made a killing out of it.

Schooling literally stopped and my bright girl was a victim of this epoch. The problem was only arrested upon the introduction of teacher incentives. This year, I have two children in school, both of them candidates. The emerging tiff between teachers and the ministry of education over incentives has left most parents hopeless. The victims will be our children again.

As parents, we don't support Minister Dokora's policy of stopping teachers' incentives. We have adapted to paying these incentives and have no problem in continue paying since its paying dividends. The money is coming from our pockets and it's not a burden in any way to the government. Dokora must not mourn more than the bereaved.

The minister is majoring in minors. He must focus on more important issues than crafting disastrous policies that do not add value to our children's education. He must come out clear on this issue because at one time he was in the media refuting that his ministry has ordered the stoppage of incentives. His Permanent secretary and directors are busy sending circulars instructing heads of schools to stop paying incentives that exceed 10% of their revenue. In fact heads are being threatened and the minister cannot tell us that all this is being done behind his back.

We had thought that the injection of funds into BEAM would go a long way in consolidating our ranking in the literacy level. However, BEAM with dejected teachers will not help anyone. Those who injected the funds into BEAM want to build our education yet the responsible ministry is destroying through careless policies.

I strongly believe that having a child who is at a Zimbabwean school must be one of the criterion used to appoint an education minister, deputy and even the permanent secretary. With a child at a local school, they will not craft such policies. After all that's the standing rule with the SDAs/SDCs and they are doing a sterling job.