Mozambique: Teachers accuse government of “compulsory transfers”

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Mozambique: Teachers accuse government of “compulsory transfers”

3:03 CAT | 20 Feb 2024

File photo: DW

The National Teachers’ Association (Anapro) this Tuesday accused the government of compulsorily transferring teachers who are either members of or have alleged links to political opposition to distant schools, classifying this action as the “height of political intolerance”.

“They do not comply with the law. They go on persecuting, in an arbitrary manner – it is the height of political intolerance,” president of Anapro, Isac Marrengula, told Lusa.

Lusa has so far been unable to obtain a reaction from the Ministry of Education and Human Development to the teachers’ accusations.

Marrengula observed that, in Vilankulo municipality in the south of the country, several teachers were transferred to schools more than 150 kilometres from the places where they worked on the grounds of suspicions that they belonged to the opposition.

Vilankulo, which was a stronghold of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), the ruling party, was won by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, in October’s local elections.

In Milange municipality, in central Mozambique, an opposition candidate in the local elections was also transferred, in an act of “political persecution”, Marrengula said.

Marrengula stated that other teachers have been victims of threats from leaders in the Education sector and Frelimo members, due to their alleged links to the opposition.

The Anapro president maintained that the transfers of teachers have been carried out illegally, since the rules determine that those displaced must receive an adaptation allowance equivalent to three minimum wages.

The president of Anapro further accused the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, himself a university professor, of moral responsibility for the persecution of teachers.

At the end of January, Nyusi said that professionals in the profession are “confused and agitators”, following protests against the way in which the Single Salary Table (TSU) was implemented.

“We are not agitators, nor confused, much less noisy,” Marrengula stressed.

The director said that Anapro’s legal department was studying ways to peacefully combat “compulsive transfers”.

Marrengula said that the persecution of teachers began after demonstrations against the TSU undertaken by the profession in 2023.

Source: Lusa