John Tallach Secondary School
3rd December 1980
Dear Friends,
I’m sure that many of you are very well informed about the general situation in Zimbabwe. However though in many cases the Government is trying to do its best for the ordinary people of the country, in education for instance the keeping of election promises is causing increasing difficulty for schools both Government and private, as we are now regarded. Primary education is now free and so far the Government has handed out large sums of money to every school to pay for books and other necessities as well as continuing to pay teachers’ salaries which have been increased tremendously in the past year, more by the previous Government than by this one.
Now they are trying to fulfil promises concerning secondary education which they promised would be universal though not free. It may seem strange to people overseas that it is not universal but there has never been a large intake of taxes in this country nor a welfare state with plenty of money to provide buildings and other necessities. In the past only most white and a small percentage of black Africans earned enough to pay taxes and this had to provide for all the needs of a country which is fairly well developed. At the moment for us the main problem is shortage of teachers. Many teachers want to teach in town not in the country and with the tremendous increase in the number of classes in town next year they will probably get vacancies quite easily. Three of our teachers are in this position and one has already got a job there. Three other teachers are also leaving for various personal reasons but they would be going anyway. So far we have only the hope of replacing three of these six and even these are not definite yet. Therefore out of 13 staff, 6 have to be replaced before the end of January when our year starts. The Government is recruiting teachers from overseas and it seems there would be no problem for us to bring into the country any young folk who might like to help us. We could fit in almost anyone who has a degree or teacher training provided they are willing to help with Bible Knowledge or some other subject for which they are not completely qualified. Mathematics, science, needlework and geography are our main requirements.
The two year contract offered by our church is a very short period of time for any young person to be away from home and it would be a great help to us even for the next few years to have extra staff from overseas.
Added to this problem is the fact that Miss Mackenzie goes on leave in April and Miss MacAulay and myself by 1982 officially. While ordinary classes may be organised the Christian side of the work in school i.e. the Bible lessons, Sabbath school and our Bible study groups require a number of Christian teachers and so far we have been unsuccessful in obtaining these here.
We would therefore appeal to our young folk to come to our aid.
The hospital is also desperately needing more staff and I was asked to mention this.
Yours sincerely,
Marion M. Graham, Headmistress.