Self-upgraded teachers push for promotions
By Faith Kamtambe:
Some 2,014 self-upgraded teachers have pleaded with the government to consider them in the massive 14,000 teacher promotion which the government is expected to undertake.
The teachers have been conducting vigils at Capital Hill since November 2018 to force the government to promote them.
Ministry of Education through its Principal Secretary Justin Saidi, earlier this week said 14,000 teachers out of the total 80,000 in the country will be promoted this year.
Leader of the self-upgraded teachers, Dokiso Munthali, said they hoped the government would consider them this time around.
“That is what we have been expecting; 14,000 is a good number and we are just 2,014 people; so, we wish our concerns were taken on board as we do not have information from the ministry that we are going to be considered.”
Advertisement“We gave the government a dateline of January 30 2019 to consider our plea and, if they will be silent come February 1 2019, we are going back to Capital Hill,” he said.
But Saidi has said the promotions are meant for all teachers and not a selected group.
“All issues regarding teachers are addressed to Teachers Union of Malawi (Tum) and when Tum gives us the issues, it is when we know which issues to start addressing. We are not targeting a specific group. We are targeting all teachers,” he said.
Earlier, the self-upgraded teachers presented a petition to the Parliamentary Committee on Education, pleading with members of Parliament to intervene in the matter.
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