By Martha Leboho
Progressive Teacher’s Union in Zimbabwe has ordered unvaccinated teachers to report for work on Monday stating that it is unprocedural to stop going to work on the basis of generic communication that has no specific names.
On September 14, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cabinet ordered all government workers to get vaccinated giving them a month to comply.
The circular warned that civil servants who fail to produce a vaccination certificate shall not be allowed to report for duty in an endeavor “to minimizing the spread and effect of the novel COVID-19 pandemic.”
In a statement, Progressive Teacher’s Union in Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou encourage teachers to be vaccinated “but by no means should such encouragement be misconstrued for mandatory vaccination, but voluntary vaccination.”
“The quandary over the issue of vaccination is that there was never an engagement between government as employer and civil servants representatives (employees), particularly teacher unions. The order is therefore a unilateral declaration by government,” Zhou said.
“We however advice teachers that it is unprocedural for them to stop going to work on the basis of generic communication that has no specific names. In terms of standard operational procedures unvaccinated teachers must continue to report for work until they receive communiques specifically in their names informing them to stop coming for work. Verbal instructions from school heads are invalid. We however encourage school heads to compile lists of all unvaccinated teachers at their respective schools, and indicate reasons for non-vaccination and send to districts for onward conveyance to province, Head Office and PSC and wait for formal instructions from these respectable offices. Verbal instructions are legally void in the Public Service and we hope there would be written communiques to teachers in the respective schools taking cognisant of reasons proffered for non-vaccination,” he continued.
“It is our hope that the issue of non- vaccination would not be used to settle old scores in schools. Every case must be determined on its merit and we encourage administrators, education officials and PSC to navigate this quandary in a professional manner, never mind its one armed banditry origin.”
As at 15 October, Zimbabwe had 132 285 confirmed cases, including 126 034 recoveries and 4655 deaths. A total of 3 408 474 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
