Government rebuffs self-upgraded teachers

The government has turned down self-upgraded teachers’ demand for promotion.

The teachers, in a letter they addressed to ministry officials recently, asked the government to “automatically” upgrade them after they attained what they called “high qualifications”.

But, through the Ministry of Education (MoE), the government has said it would only follow the right procedures when promoting teachers.

The ministry has also indicated that it would not promote special needs teachers because they do not have subjects of specialisation in secondary schools.

In a meeting that lasted over two hours at the ministry’s headquarters in Lilongwe on Friday, MoE Principal Secretary Chikondano Mussa told the teachers that the ministry would in March this year release an advert for grade J and I vacancies and teachers that are qualified to teach special subjects should apply.

MoE spokesperson Chikondi Chimala confirmed that the meeting indeed took place but could not be drawn to shed more light on the issue, saying the ministry has proper channels of relaying information.

Meanwhile, team leader for the self-upgraded teachers, Vascoh Cosmas, has said the meeting did not yield a positive outcome for them.

“We have taken notice of their position. All we wanted was that all teachers that upgraded their academic qualifications should be promoted automatically. We are planning to meet Teachers Union of Malawi Executive Committee members to help us on the matter,” Cosmas said.

Last year, Ombudsman Martha Chizuma wrote MoE officials, informing them that automatic promotions which were effected in 2019 were not procedural.

The country has over 2,000 self-upgraded teachers who want promotions.