Mozambique: ANAPRO announces teachers’ march for better conditions on Saturday

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Mozambique: ANAPRO announces teachers’ march for better conditions on Saturday

3:30 CAT | 14 Nov 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Notícias]

The National Association of Teachers of Mozambique (Anapro) has called for a march in the city of Maputo on Saturday to agitate for better conditions and the payment of overtime, the organisation announced today.

“It’s not just about the overtime, but also about the inhospitable conditions in which we work, the ever-increasing teacher-student ratio, the classrooms in terrible conditions and the lack of funeral allowances,” Anapro president Isac Marrengula told Lusa.

The teachers are also complaining about an alleged “lack of promotions, progressions and changes in categories and health care allowances,” Marrengula added.

Also in Anapro’s list of demands is the payment of overtime, which is overdue, for two months and 18 days in 2022, for the whole of 2023 and for the two quarters of 2024, as well as “better classification” in the Single Salary Table (TSU).

“The Ministry of Education and Human Development, all provincial Education Directorates and District Youth and Technology Services are hereby notified that a new cycle of demands and pressure will begin,” reads the association’s statement sent to Lusa.

In the same document, the profession calls for a “national march of teachers” to show “indignation and dissatisfaction with the executive”, stating that the peak of the demonstrations will “focus on the process of grade and exam councils” for all classes and levels.

“Several approaches made to the various bodies of the executive and legislative powers in an attempt to see the problem resolved, have resulted in failure,” the document adds, highlighting the loss of “trust” in the Mozambican government.

Lusa previously reported that Anapro asked the Mozambican parliament to verify the processes and procedures used by the government to pay overtime in arrears.

At the time, Anapro requested that “the Petitions and Complaints Committee” seriously seek to find out the number of people to whom it is owed, plus “how much and when it will be paid, because the bulk of the debt with teachers remains and the government wants to leave it forgotten”.

Marrengula said on September 2 that the class has lost “the trust” previously placed in the Assembly of the Republic, adding that that institution “no longer represents the interests of the people”.

“Since we met and they promised answers, they have not yet given any, and we know they will not. But there are also no longer any conditions for us to sit down with them, because we cannot trust this Assembly,” the president of Anapro said.

On April 17, Prime Minister of Mozambique, Adriano Maleiane, said that the government had already paid €3.3 million in overtime to teachers, warning of “unfounded remuneration claims.”

“In the education sector, a debt of 361.6 million meticais (€5.3 million) was validated, and an amount of 227.4 million meticais (€3.3 million euros) in overtime allowances has already been paid,” Maleiane said in the Assembly of the Republic during a session in which the executive answered questions from deputies.

Source: Lusa