A South African recruitment drive for teachers, combined with an exodus of education professionals escaping Zimbabwe's seven-year recession, is creating staff shortages so severe that some schools are closing.

At least four schools have closed and several more are facing the same situation. The students are being transferred at a time when they are preparing to write their year-end examinations, placing even greater pressure on the recipient schools.

Teacher's salaries have not kept pace with Zimbabwe's official inflation rate of more than 6,000 percent, while neighbouring South Africa has embarked on a recruitment drive for teachers in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to bolster their own teacher numbers.

Firoz Patel, director-general for planning and monitoring in South Africa's education department, has reportedly said they were seeking to recruit at least 4,000 mathematics and science teachers from the region by April 2008. The department had already recruited 1,500 teachers, who were being deployed to posts in remote areas, often shunned by local teachers.

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), the biggest grouping of educators in the country, said this week that 15,200 teachers had migrated to neighbouring states, such as South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland, since the beginning of 2007.

Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of PTUZ, confirmed that the mass exodus of teachers was forcing schools to close, while many institutions were operating with a skeleton teaching staff.

"There are two schools in Matabeleland North [Province] which have shut down as a result of teacher shortages, while in Matabeleland South [Province] there are reports that one headmaster was forced to close down the school after all the teachers left," Majongwe told IRIN. He said 8,000 teachers had left Zimbabwe after the first term, while another 7,200 left after the second term.

Teacher exodus

"There has been a mass exodus of teachers ... the situation this term is worse because, in the last two weeks alone, hundreds of teachers resigned en masse and the figures of teachers who have now left the country could be double those of the beginning of the year. We are still compiling the statistics," Majongwe said.

Last week, Inyathi High School in Matabeleland South Province transferred its students to nearby Gloag High School after all the science teachers resigned, while Lumene Primary School, in the same district, failed to open for the third term when none of the teachers arrived for duty. Other schools that have failed to open in Matabeleland South are Chibila Primary in Binga, Sizinda and Gundwane Primary School.

Zipora Mudenda, Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Culture, confirmed that teachers had resigned but said she was unaware of any schools closing as a result of staff shortages.

"As far as we are concerned all schools have been operational, and if there are such cases of schools not being opened or closing down, this has not been brought to our attention - and in such cases the education directors are supposed to staff those schools with relief teachers," Mudenda said.

She conceded there was a brain drain affecting the education profession, and said the ministry was implementing a skills-retention fund in a bid to retain teachers, but the initiative was dismissed by the PTUZ.

"The government has not done anything to retain teachers. The retention fee of Z$200,000 (US$0.40 at the parallel market rate of Z$500,000 to US$1) a month is a joke, and teachers will continue to leave until government gets serious," Majongwe told IRIN.

Final year exams

The staffing shortages at schools have become a serious concern for the parents of school-going children, who are about to start writing their final year exams.

"Since the beginning of the term the students have not been learning anything due to a shortage of teachers, and the situation is made worse by the fact that the government has embarked on an exercise to recruit untrained teachers to fill the gaps," Martha Tshuma told IRIN. Her child attends Sobukhazi Secondary School in the high-density suburb of Mzilikazi in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo.

Students in many schools in and around Bulawayo, interviewed by IRIN, said most teachers at their schools were untrained relief teachers. "Right now all teachers at school are temporary teachers, and they do not seem to be in charge, as they are confused by a lot of things in our syllabi," said a final-year student who declined to be named.

Majongwe said the government was using relief teachers, but this was not a solution and was compromising education standards in a country once widely regarded as setting some of the best educational standards in Africa after Zimbabwe won its independence from Britain in 1980.

Last week 25 teachers resigned from Kuwadzana High School in the capital, Harare, while at Mzilikazi High School, in Bulawayo, 20 teachers resigned, Majongwe said.

Hyperinflation has played havoc with teachers' salaries of about Z$5 million (US$10) per month. A promise by the ZANU-PF government that salaries would increase to Z$15 million (US$30) has been dismissed as nothing more than a perpetuation of poverty wages.