Zimbabwean schools have reopened this week, but teachers who downed tools last year are not backing down.

Those who are at work are on a go-slow putting the country's high literacy in jeopardy.

Teachers in Zimbabwe say their current average monthly salaries of below $100 are too low to make ends meet.

They say they cannot afford to send their own children to school.

"Low morale is an understatement, there is no morale," said teacher Abbiot Moyo.

"Imagine you are at work and you are thinking of the child you left at home, you are looking at the needs you are supposed to meet for your children. You are thinking of failing to send your children to school while you are teaching other people's children."

One of the country's biggest teachers' unions says more than half of the country's 100,000 public-sector teachers cannot make it to classrooms because of the collapsing economy.

Zimbabwe's public education sector was once considered one of the best in Africa, but the economy has collapsed in recent years.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, in turn, blames the economic collapse on sanctions imposed by western countries nearly two decades ago.

Source(s): eNCA