Photo of Tsvangirai’s Inauguration by Foreign and Commonwealth Office

ZIMBABWE: On Friday teachers’ unions rejected a government pay offer of $100 (US dollars) a month, and vowed to continue the crippling strikes that have left most of Zimbabwe’s schools closed. These same teachers cheered new PM Morgan Tsvangirai at his inauguration last week, when he announced that all civil servants would be paid in tax free foreign currency; but when the details of the plan were exposed last Wednesday, the teachers were outraged.

Teachers originally demanded $2300 a month. That is about as much as a Canadian teacher makes, and four times more than the average Polish teacher. $2300 a month would be a gold mine in Zimbabwe, so it’s easy to see why the government thinks they’re being unreasonable.

“There has not been any effective learning since January 27 when schools were supposed to be officially opened,” said Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (ZIMTA) secretary general Richard Gundani. “We advised the minister that there was need to revise the school calendar.”

(NOTE: I love that this guy says “effective learning”.)

Foreign aid groups are pressuring Tsvangirai to act, calling Zimbabwe’s youth a “generation in peril.”

Article from New Zimbabwe: Teachers to snub government pay offer