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Teachers sell tuck-shop stock and gap it
Sibangani Sibanda, The Zimbabwe Times
September 08, 2008

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=3656

Schools opened this week for the third and final term of the year. This is the term in which those who are to sit public examinations will be making their final preparations for what is make-or-break time in their education history. With inflation now estimated at nearly twenty million percent, one can imagine how the parents struggled just to get 'tuck' for their children in boarding schools all over the country.

But if the plight of parents is bad, spare a thought for the plight of our teachers who are expected to produce future doctors, lawyers and other skilled (and unskilled) personnel on salaries that are a mockery to their profession. And then, when Zanu-PF feels like it, the teachers get beaten up for making the opposition party win the elections. How the teachers, most of whom struggle to put a decent pair of shoes on their feet, can achieve this against an all pervasive state media and state sponsored terror is a mystery that will probably only be revealed to those who will make it to Heaven!

Anyway, it seems the teachers of one school, at least, have had enough. Information from those living around the school in one of Harare's more affluent northern suburbs is that, on opening day the teachers came in, opened the tuck shop, sold all the stock, shared the proceeds and left. They have not been seen since.

The children who, as a general rule, are never too worried about the absence of teachers now have the school to themselves and have a place to which they can legitimately visit and get up to all sorts without the inconvenience of parents or teachers. What fun!

What I find disturbing about the whole episode is that it is completely ignored. No one in the incumbent government is the least bit worried about this situation, judging by the silence from that quarter. Nor is there any mention of it in the media, official or otherwise. It is as if Zimbabweans are so drunk on crises that one more just gets taken in our collective stride.

Or is it perhaps that we are concerned with the more pressing matters of getting food on the table, commuting to and from work and drawing our ever dwindling money from the bank before it becomes worthless. Our children's education, it seems, has become an unnecessary burden. After all, even when the children do get a reasonable education, all they can do is leave the country, never to be seen again. Or they spend their days drinking themselves silly while selling fuel, money, bread, cigarettes and any number of other contraband items they can find to sell.

Meanwhile, the "on-again-off-again" talks keep cropping up. There are not many people that I meet these days who have any interest in the outcome of the talks. There is a certain resignation bordering on an acceptance of the inevitability of change only coming with the death of one Robert G. Mugabe. The said RGM who continues to insist (with croaking voice) that he is the duly elected President of Zimbabwe seems unable to grasp the very basic truth that the people of Zimbabwe are cleverer than he gives them credit for.

They know who the duly elected president is. They know who is responsible for the mess they find themselves in. But, they also know how unrelentingly cruel their leaders can be.

It is this cruelty, the cruelty of physically beating and eliminating those who even voice concern for the leaders' misgovernance; the cruelty of not worrying about the hunger that currently grips the country; the cruelty of not worrying about the future of the country that our leaders want to protect. They cannot give up power and risk being "discovered" by even those who still believe in them. The country is melting all around them, but they still want the power to rule. But what are they ruling?

Our education system, which produced many great academics and artisans is crumbling. Our young people have no future to look forward to. But a gang of octogenarians, whose future is a lot shorter than their grim past, clings on, because they dare not let go.

The children are going to school to play.

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