Salaries and the teaching profession in Zimbabwe: importance, desire and reality

Abstract

This article is based on a major research concerned with the recruitment and training of non-graduate secondary student teachers in 1985. Since that study, the author collected more information on the 'gjiobal perspectives’ of teachers’ salaries from international reports such as those by ILO and UNESCO. The article argues that salaries are crucial because they influence the supply of new recruits to the teaching profession as well as retaining professionally qualified teachers already in service. Comparisons are made between salaries pad to non-graduate secondary teachers and salaries paid to people in the public and private sectors requiring the same academic qualifications and similar years of training. This article is important to Zimbabwe because the country faces a teacher shortage. If salaries are poor, this shortage will not improve.