Africa-Press – Malawi. Members of Parliament have faulted Government on how it promotes teachers, saying most of the times Government only promote teachers when it is close to elections. The MPs were responding to a report presented in the house by the parliamentary committee on education.
Speaking to Malawi24, Member of Parliament for Blantyre City South Noel Lipipa said more teachers have not been promoted and they are on the same grade for years and this is not good because a person cannot work for more than 20 years with no promotion.
“I think the promotion come towards elections so we say we don’t only have to promote these teachers during elections but if they deserve these promotions let’s promote them as they deserve the promotion,” said Lipipa. Lipipa also faulted Government on the employment of teachers saying there is still a challenge in teacher to pupil ratio.
“Government can’t accommodate more teachers so we need to make sure we find a solution because we have teachers that are not employed so how do we improve quality of education if we have unemployed teachers and then the teacher student ratio remains a challenge so there has to be a political will from the government, we can employ these teachers if there is commitment from the government,” said Lipipa.
In her remarks, Member of Parliament for Machinga East Ester Jolobala said some teachers have been working for 27 years without being promoted and this is good because these teachers need to be motivated. According to Jolobala, there is need to promote teachers as a standalone program and not waiting for the elections for them to be promoted.
“Promotion of the teachers it needs a lot of work to be done some assessment to be done properly but if we continue the culture of promoting teachers just before elections we happen to promote teachers for the sake of promoting teachers and by doing that we end up promoting someone who is not a hard working person and leaving hardworking people unpromoted,” said Jolobala.
Speaking on the report, Member of Parliament for Balaka West Bertha Ndebele who presented the report in Parliament said they visited a number of schools and findings are that a lot of primary schools are lacking classrooms, teacher-learner ratio is high and some of the teachers complained that they have stayed a number of years without being promoted to the next grade.
“Teachers complained that they have stayed a number of years without being promoted to the next grade. For example, they have gone for 20 years and that also is demotivating our teachers in primary schools because they would not work hard because they are not getting motivations,” said Ndebele.
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