Zimbabwe, Rwanda sign agreement to import teachers

Harare. Rwanda and Zimbabwe signed a memorandum of understanding that paves the way for Kigali to recruit teachers from the southern African country.

The MOU signed by Zimbabwe’s Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare minister Paul Mavima and his Rwandan Education minister Valentine Uwamariya in Harare on Thursday came months after Rwanda President Paul Kagame said his country needed to urgently recruit teachers from Zimbabwe to boost its education system.

Professor Mavima said the agreement will protect the teachers against unethical recruitment practices.

“The signing of the MoU indeed enables both our countries to protect our citizens from the dangers of unethical and unfair recruitment practices, which nowadays characterise the recruitment of human capital across borders and foreign labour markets,” he said.

“This partnership creates an avenue for both Zimbabwe and Rwanda to play a significant role in advancing the ideals of our continent as encapsulated in the continental development frameworks given the fact that human capital development is critical to delivering on both the Agenda 263 vision and the aspirations of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.” 

The minister said the MoU had principles that promoted “decent work principles across the whole process of exchange of personnel and expertise, including critical issues in labour migration such as non-discrimination and portability of social security benefits.” 

Dr Uwamariya said the MoU would be implemented swiftly to ensure that Rwanda can immediately recruit teachers from Zimbabwe.

“The signing of this MoU marks an important milestone in the partnership between Rwanda and Zimbabwe,” he said.

“The MoU will also make it possible for Rwanda to hire Zimbabwean teachers and lecturers for teaching in the college of medicine and health sciences.”

President Kagame in September told the Rwanda and Zimbabwe Trade and Investment Conference in Kigali that Harare can offer his country “good teachers.”

“I want to emphasise one thing that the deputy chief executive of the Rwanda Development Board mentioned that Zimbabwe can offer equipment but before equipment I want people,” he said at the time.
“Zimbabwe can offer us good teachers. 

“Please work on that with a sense of urgency and find whatever number of good, qualified teachers we can absorb because we need them, we need them as a matter of urgency.”

Zimbabwe has thousands of qualified teachers who cannot be absorbed into its education system and the country has been pursuing deals with some African countries to export the labour.