UZ Lecturers Strike Enters 100 Days Today

Today marks 100 days since University of Zimbabwe (UZ) lecturers embarked on an indefinite strike since April, protesting against low salaries – US$230 month (about R4000) for a whole professor – and poor working conditions at the country’s premier institution of higher learning.

In a development which further exposes government’s warped priorities and failure to attend to critical issues that really matter, UZ lecturers, under the leadership of the Association of University Teachers (AUT), have been pleading for dialogue to address the deteriorating issue which has crippled UZ.

The strike has seen temporary lecturers being hired for half-baked teaching sessions amid an emergence of academic fraud and corrupt activities. Under Vice-chancellor Professor Paul Mapfumo, who was appointed in 2018 ahead of better candidates for the job – a scandal in itself, the UZ has been on a free-fall.

The strike is a manifestation of a deep-seated crisis at the university, itself a reflection of national failure.

The UZ, currently lowly ranked in Africa, is now characterised by mismanagement, corruption and incompetence, as well as crude suppression of academic freedom.

Education, just like health, infrastructure and service delivery, has crumbled, with devastating consequences. Zimbabwe’s education system is facing severe challenges, including dilapidated infrastructure; crumbling buildings, lack of proper classrooms or lecture theatres, and overcrowding.

Thousands of teachers and lecturers, now reduced to paupers, like all workers in Zimbabwe in general, have left education due to low wages and poor working conditions.

Teachers and lecturers earn meagre salaries, taking home as low as US$200-US$250 per month, which cannot sustain even one person, let alone a family monthly.

This has led to a massive brain drain into other activities and flight across borders, further destroying the already damaged local education system.

UZ lecturers are protesting low salary cuts and demanding a return to pre-2018 salary levels, which they say were drastically reduced due to inflationary pressures, and currency changes and volatility.

The lecturers are demanding a salary increase from US$230 a month to US$2 500, citing the high cost of living and inflation.

The university administration has responded by suspending some lecturers and hiring temporary staff, some of them unqualified, at a lower hourly rate, while also withholding salaries from striking tutors, which the AUT says it a ruthless pressure tactic to break their backs and spirits.

Students have expressed solidarity with the lecturers and are resisting attempts to bring in temporary or replacement staff, while demanding urgent government attention and UZ reforms.