UZ LECTURER STRIKE: Poor Remuneration of Academic Staff at State Universities a National Crisis. The poor remuneration and deplorable conditions of service for academic staff at Zimbabwe’s state universities, which has led to the highly publicised indefinite strike by the teaching staff at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) smacks of a shocking administrative failure and abuse of duty by the authorities at the state universities; with the embarrassing complicity of the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development.
At the core of
their long unresolved multifaceted grievances, the striking UZ academic staff
are demanding the restoration of their pre-October 2018 salary levels, when the
basic salary of a junior lecturer was circa US$2,250 to $2,500 per month.
This fair
demand arises from the fact that in October 2018, the university authorities
inexplicably slashed the US$2,250 to $2,500 per month; to what is today a
paltry average of US$230 to $300 per month. The reduction has been by a cruel
87 percent.
The current
reduced salary has a local currency component, averaging ZWG 6,000 to 8,000,
and amounting to less than US$200.
No one needs
any advice from a rocket scientist to understand that this deplorable situation
has left the academic staff unable to make ends meet, as they cannot afford
basic necessities like housing, food, transport, healthcare, school fees and
the like; in an economy whose generally harsh environment has been worsened by
inflation and currency devaluation.
Through their
union representative, the Association of University Teachers (AUT), the
academic staff at UZ have given the public a compelling case about their slave
wages and deplorable conditions, and the staff describe their pitiful financial
situation as rendering them “incapacitated” to perform their duties effectively
and efficiently.
Although there
are many disturbing facets that the academic staff have shared about their
salary dire straits, notably, two of their grievances expose the rot at UZ in
particularly telling and worrying ways.
First, the AUT
says while the UZ academic staff have been wallowing in enforced poverty due to
the unilateral slashing of their salaries in 2018, in the interim the UZ
management has awarded itself lavish packages that have included luxury cars
and hefty US dollar perks, while prioritising the pursuit of non-essential
projects at the expense of the welfare and working conditions of the academic
staff.
Second, the AUT
says that UZ authorities have been refusing to engage the association, and
claims that, since 2018, the association has written over 27 letters to UZ
management asking for salary reviews, and has received only one negative
response, and has been granted only two inconclusive meetings in seven years.
The AUT characterises the managerial approach and attitude of the UZ as always
“prescriptive’ and never “consultative” or "explorative" to find
solutions.
And this begs
the question: where has the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education,
Innovation, Science and Technology Development been in this fiasco over seven
years?
All told, the
2018 reduction of the salaries of academic staff by a staggering 87 percent can
only be described as unfair, unjust and indefensible.
This is the
case not only of the striking academic staff at UZ but also of academic staff
at all state universities.
The devastating
impact on the livelihoods of the academic staff has hit the bottom of the
barrel; as they are no longer able to fend for themselves and their families
or, as per their vocation, no longer able to adequately and meaningfully teach
their students; let alone to do any research to produce the intellectual
property that is necessary for the country’s industrialisation and
modernisation.
While it was
terribly bad for the university universities — with the complicity of the
Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology
Development — to have superintended over this debacle in the first place, it is
worse that they have done nothing to reverse and redress the situation over a
very long seven years.
It’s a shameful
debacle.
The university
authorities and the ministry cannot escape the indictment that their inability
to redress the situation is a shocking administrative failure and abuse of
duty, which has resulted in an intolerable violation of the human dignity of
the academic staff at state universities.
Not only is
this a national embarrassment, but it is also a threat to the country’s
economic interests with national security implications.
One thing
should be clear: the poor remuneration of academic staff at state universities,
which is emblematic of an insidious marginalisation of higher education and its
treatment as some largely irrelevant ivory tower occupation — that can be
ignored in the prioritisation of national resource allocation — needs to stop,
in the national interest.
It would be
impossible for Zimbabwe to defeat the enemies of the people, namely; hunger,
poverty, disease, ignorance and corruption without the kid of intellectual
property that can only come from higher education; particularly but not only
through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
The impression
often given that the solutions to hunger, poverty, disease, ignorance and
corruption will come from civil servants and politicians is misguided,
misplaced and wrong.
In the final
analysis, countries develop and compete on the basis and strength of their
intellectual capacity and intellectual property.
The most
closely guarded national secrets in geopolitics is intellectual property that
makes the world go round; it's not secrets about who said what, who sleeps with
who or who has stolen what. It's intellectual property. The trade beef between the US and China is
not about tariffs, it is over the ownership of intellectual property.
It is in this
connection that the most important institutions - and indeed persons - in
society are the producers of intellectual property, and the most common and
most reliable of these institutions are universities.
A society that
does not adequately remunerate or reward its academic staff at its institutions
of higher education, and which treats its universities merely as teaching and
learning institutions, and not as producers of cutting-edge intellectual
property that’s patentable and commercially useable, is its own worst enemy.
The poor
remuneration, marginalisation and mistreatment of academic staff at state
universities in the country is a national crisis. It needs to be fixed as a
matter of urgency! He was writing on X
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