Mozambique: Teachers insist they will go on strike

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Mozambique: Teachers insist they will go on strike

4:56 CAT | 18 Oct 2024

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

Mozambique’s National Association of Teachers (ANAPRO) on Wednesday once again threatened to go on strike because the Education Ministry is failing to pay the money it allegedly owes the teachers for their overtime work.

According to the ANAPRO spokesperson, Isac Marrengula, cited in Friday’s issue of the independent newsheet “Carta de Moçambique”, the government was lying when it said that overtime for 2022, 2023 and 2024 was already being paid throughout the country.

The teachers found it inconceivable that the government had the money to pay for an election campaign, but did not have the money to pay for teachers’ overtime.

Some payments were being made, supposedly to cover two and a half months overtime. ANAPRO says this should be a minimum of 35,000 meticais (about 550 US dollars, at the current exchange rate) but in some cases the amounts entering the teachers’ bank accounts is as little as 750 meticais

ANAPRO said that if the government continues to deceive them, the teachers’ strike could begin in a fortnight, consisting of boycotting the release of results for the current school year and making it impossible to hold the school examinations scheduled for the end of November.

“The government has two weeks to act and reverse the situation and should stop making optimistic speeches just to look good”, Marrengula said. “The government says there is no budget for this payment, but that doesn’t correspond to reality. The current government is at the end of its term of office and no-one has commented on our payment”.

Marrengula explained that the government currently owes teachers 20 months’ worth of overtime. As a result of the debt, the teachers have decided to stop working overtime.

“However, the government has opted to overcrowd classrooms, where it is already possible to find classes with up to 110 pupils”, he said.

Since the first quarter of the current year, the teachers in the Mozambican National Education System have been threatening to go on strike. However, they postponed putting the strike into action when the Prime Minister, Adriano Maleiane, announced that the government was in the process of paying part of the money owed, which corresponds to 70 per cent of the alleged debt.

Source: AIM