
Maputo, 21 Nov (AIM) – Mozambique’s National Association of Teachers (ANAPRO) is threatening to boycott final exams in primary and secondary schools, if the government does not pay the money it allegedly owes teachers for overtime work.
After announcing “various” strikes to be carried out, the teachers marched on Saturday claiming that the government must meet its demands regarding the improvement of the education system and the payment of the overtime money.
However, several hundred of them were attacked by Police with tear gas grenades. However, they refused to be intimidated. They washed the tear gas from their faces and demanded the right to march. After a brief negotiation, the police climbed down, and the teachers marched through central Maputo, chanting “Teachers, united, will never be defeated!”
As a result of the march, the government invited the teachers to a meeting in order to discuss existing problems. But the meeting, once again, failed to satisfy the teachers, who had hoped that the government would at last bring solutions to their problems.
According to ANAPRO spokesperson, Marcos Mulima, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, in Maputo, “we have been making many appeals on this issue, and now we prefer not to trust what the government says because we know that they are lying.”
The teachers say that they have no other mechanism to put pressure on the government but to boycott the final exams.
“So far we have said that if they don’t pay the overtime money, their final exams for primary and secondary schools will not be held throughout the country. There’s no deadline, it’s today and now, or they pay from tomorrow until next week. The disbursement of the amounts must be immediate”, he said.
ANAPRO explained that the government had many opportunities to negotiate payment methods, but nothing has been done so far.
The teachers in the Mozambican National Education System are also threatening not to work with classes of over 100 pupils, since overcrowding has been harming the quality of education.
(AIM)
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