I am a married teacher whose family lives in Harare and I work at a school about 300km from my home. I need US$15 (bond notes are not accepted by private transporters who are cheaper) to get to my workstation.

[By Concerned Teacher]

As a married woman with young children and also to balance work and marriage I have to go back home to my husband and family weekly, which means I need US$30 per week just for transport.

I will not talk about food because according to you (Finance minister Mthuli Ncube), teachers live a life of daily fasting.

I will not mention school fees for my children because teachers’ children don’t need any education at all. I will not talk about my health because teachers and their families don’t get ill or if we fall ill by any chance we consult prophets, but remember they now also demand a payment.

If you really care to listen Mr Ncube, sit down and make a budget for me using that $12 000 you announced and tell me how I am supposed to balance it. May you also tell us how many times you fly out of Zimbabwe, out of Africa to be precise to be with your family in Switzerland using part of what I am supposed to earn, yet I can’t afford to be with my family weekly here in Zimbabwe?

Do you have any respect for the institution of marriage and families? Do you even care about the future of our children who have now gone into the fourth week without teachers?

Do you still remember your days in Grade One being helped by that old lady teacher to shape the letter O? But you now pride yourself for having several degrees and you forget that behind your education there was that poor teacher whom you continue to make poorer.

I love my job, but I am not a charitable organisation. I don’t need handouts from Urayai (Killer) Zivhu to make a decent living.

I don’t need a parent’s incentive to go to work. I have one employer whom you represent.

If you have failed, kindly inform President Emmerson Mnangagwa that you have failed and stop lying to him that you have managed to have a budget surplus which you achieve through underpaying poor teachers. Mnangagwa is a listening President, but you are lying to him. I doubt that he knows the true breadbasket of a family of six because you lied to him that $12 000 is enough.

Please Ncube we want a living wage which is equivalent to US$520. This amount will see us preach the good gospel of A E I O U, atoms, logic gates and quadratic equations to our students and help develop our nation.

Remember teaching remains the mother of all professions and all professors, you included, passed through us.