Masvingo Province has run out of teaching vacancies prompting hundreds of prospective teachers to throng the Education ministry offices in search of placements elsewhere.
Some prospective teachers from outside Masvingo town, some of whom recently graduated, have been sleeping on the pavements at Wigley House where the provincial Education offices are located seeking to replace the few teachers who are either deceased, resigned or on leave.
Provincial Education director, Clara Dube, confirmed the development, but said unemployed teachers should look for vacancies in other provinces.
We are filling vacancies of those who have transferred and as such the posts will be taken by others who they have swapped with. Those coming from college will only fit where there have been deaths or where the teachers have resigned.
I do not see why they spend the day sitting here, sha said. Even at satellite schools in the remote areas with no building structures there are qualified teachers, so where do we fill them in?
The development comes after teachers threatened to stage a one-day strike if government does not review their salaries upwards from $250.
The swirling number of unemployed teachers in Masvingo Province brought to the fore the increasing redundancy rate in the country.
Masvingo Province has three teacher training institutions namely, the Reformed Church in Zimbabwe-run Morgenster, government-owned Masvingo Teachers and the Roman Catholic-operated Bondolfi Teachers colleges, all of which continue to produce graduates annually.
