JUSTICE, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Parliamentary Portfolio Committee chairperson Energy Mutodi has accused schools of breaching the copyright and intellectual property laws through mass photocopying of textbooks.
Mutodi, who is also an author and musician, told Parliament during a question-and-answer session on Wednesday that writers were not benefiting from their work because schools were pirating textbooks.
“There is general disregard of intellectual property in the country,” he said.
“Schools are only buying one book from the publishers and then photocopy it. I have my mathematics textbook being pirated.
“If an author could get US$2 per copy and sell 50 000, that will translate to US$100 000. However, authors are struggling because of this culture of breaching intellectual property.”
Schools are hit by textbook shortages, with the current ratio in rural areas being one text book to 10 students, forcing teachers to photocopy the books for learning purposes.
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou said Mutodi should blame the government for failing to invest adequate resources in quality public education.
“Zimbabwe has been allocating on average 12,5% of the total budget to Primary and Secondary Education over the past 20 years, against the Dakar Agreement of over 20%,” Zhou said.
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“At any rate, Mutodi seems to be ill-informed about the realities in schools, where photo-copying is very limited. Photocopying is rampant in tertiary institutions, particularly universities.
“The government remains the chief culprit for failing to provide loans and grants to students.
“It is clear that Mutodi is operating on unfamiliar ground and under false assumption that knowledge comes to him by some form of osmosis because he is the chair of a legal and parliamentary committee.”
Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Obert Masaraure said Zimbabwe’s copyright laws allow for reproduction of material for academic purposes.
“Mutodi is misguided,” he said.
“The reproduction of books is promoting access to education for marginalised communities. Government should find ways of compensating the authors of the different literature and other learning resources.”
Zimbabwe Teachers Association president Akuneni Maphosa said students and teachers were being forced to photocopy textbooks because the government had failed to provide them.
“Learners need textbooks and the only way is to photocopy them because the government is not providing enough resources,” he said.
“Mutodi is in government and he should spearhead initiatives so that pupils will get books.”
