Teacher Unemployment in Mugabe's Zimbabwe : A Lesson for the Future?

Prior to 1990, the economic development of Zimbabwe was one to admire, and the country was dubbed "The bread basket of Africa". After 1990, things turned badly as a result of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) leading to reduced economic activity, reduced donor funding and deterioration in infrastructure and resource allocation. The economic situation suddenly became dire. The sudden downturn of the country also affected the education sector. Families could not be sustained and many teachers left their jobs to look for greener pastures in other countries, especially in Botswana and South Africa. Though the government continued to ensure teachers were trained to maintain the education system but with a non-performing economy, even those teachers who were employed would go for months without a salary. After 2010, teacher vacancies were becoming scarce. In a desperate move to please donors, the government of Zimbabwe froze all new appointments in order to reduce the wage bill. This put a strain on the available workforce which was understaffed, yet there was high unemployment of new teachers who had recently qualified. That situation has not yet been fully addressed by the new government. The government is faced with a situation where even with good ideas, there were no funds to experiment or implement reforms. The purpose of this paper is to explore the developments that led to teacher unemployment and underemployment, and then situate some proposals and possible measures to address the situation.