Ministry warns: No paid extra lessons, no forced uniform buying

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education says teachers who demand payment for extra lessons are practicing outright corruption as they are abusing public office, warning that offenders risk both disciplinary action and criminal prosecution. The education ministry also maintains that public schools are not allowed to force parents to buy uniforms as that violates the parent’s free will of choice. These remarks were made by the ministry’s Director of Communications and Advocacy, Taungana Ndoro, as he outlined the government’s reporting and complaints-handling mechanisms amid growing concerns from parents about corruption in schools, involving not only teachers but also headmasters and School Development Committees (SDCs).

Ndoro said teachers who charge learners for extra lessons are exploiting the authority of their public positions, despite already receiving salaries from the government. “This is corruption in public office. The office of a teacher is the classroom.

If that teacher is in that classroom and uses the power and authority within him or her to abuse that platform, to say, ‘parent, give me money so that I can teach your child,’ a job which you are already being paid for by government, then you are corrupt and you are supposed to be put to task,” he said in a recent meeting in Bulawayo. His comments come against a backdrop of persistent complaints from parents who say they are afraid to raise concerns during school meetings fearing their children may be victimised by teachers or school authorities. Parents have spoken out how various schools in Bulawayo and surrounding districts charge extra lessons and how these have increasingly become informal “pay-to-learn” schemes, with some teachers allegedly threatening to neglect learners who do not pay.

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Ndoro said parents who suspect wrongdoing must follow established reporting channels, starting at the lowest level. “The reporting mechanism or complaints handling in the ministry, if you are a parent and feel something is amiss at the school, the first port of call, depending on the magnitude, is the class teacher, that is if it has to do with your child,” he said. Using extra lessons as an example, Ndoro said parents have a right to question why they are being charged.

“On extra lessons, for instance, the parent may ask why they have to pay US$20 or US$10 a month or a week,” he said. “You ask the teacher, and the teacher has to respond to you, and that response becomes the basis for further complaints.”

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