MASVINGO — College lecturers have scoffed at reports they are set to get a windfall from incentives introduced by the government, saying there were few tertiary institutions that had income-generating projects that would see them getting incentives of up to $2 000 a month.
Secretary for Higher and Tertiary Education Washington Mbizvo is on record as saying government had introduced an incentive regime at State-run tertiary education institutions that would see the lecturers getting “a windfall” from the incentives over and above their monthly salaries.
But in a Press statement yesterday, College Lecturers’ Association of Zimbabwe president David Dzatsunga scoffed at Mbizvo’s announcement, saying lecturers were sceptical of the incentive scheme.
“That is a way of trying to justify the scrapping of lecturers’ incentives. Honestly, how would that $2 000 be raised per month to pay say 50 lecturers at one college . . . when the business environment is not that conducive.
“There are no colleges that have income-generating projects that can raise such an amount to pay incentives to lecturers. They do not have that capacity. What about rural-based colleges and vocational training centres that have few business opportunities?” said Dzatsunga.
Previously, each lecturer was entitled to a $100 incentive each month.
Under the new system, the Productivity-Based Incentive Scheme, tertiary institutions should have income-generating projects where proceeds are shared between the college and staff, with 45% of the profits being channelled to lecturers directly involved in the project, 40% to other staff and 15% to cover operational costs.
Dzatsunga said the system would see lecturers abandoning their core business of teaching students, to engage in fundraising.
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“Most staff would rather opt to spend most of the time on such income-generating projects just to increase their monthly allowances than to be lecturing.
“Also, it entails that some lecturers would subsidise others through their projects as manufacturing and automobile maintenance departments would top the list,” he said.
