My Turn

Demanding dignity for teachers

They say if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, and I add; if the peanuts come late, you do not even get monkeys, you get nothing.

The way government is treating teachers in public schools can best be described as appalling, insensitive and unorthodox of professional practice. It is tearing the teaching profession into tatters.

To begin with, government has been preaching about its concern for the welfare of its workforce in the civil service. This was made only too vivid at the recent Public Service Day commemorations held in the Lilongwe where, as usual, thunderous handclapping answered oily speeches.

Further, government recently issued a directive that all teachers absconding duty will have their salaries ‘amputated’ accordingly. Colourful resolution. One would think a government that is committed to providing its citizenry with quality education; one that has resolved to stamp out unprofessionalism in the teaching field would do better.

However, when one looks at how the same government treats the teachers, a contradictory message emerges. When one looks at the dates when teachers often receive their salaries, they would surely question government’s gospel.

It defies all logic why government usually pays teachers late. To make matters worse, even when the pay is ready, there are still hundreds of teachers who struggle knocking at Education offices because their names have been skipped on the payroll. It is always one anomaly or another.

Just this year, for many days into the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination exercise, many teachers had not yet received their allowances for the invigilation exercise. We are talking about delaying accommodation, meal and subsistence allowances for people entrusted with the delicate national service of administering national examinations. Yet these people are invigilating in areas far away from their duty stations. On the back of delayed salaries, how does government expect them to work effectively?

Ever since, ministers of Education have come and gone at the Education Ministry, but the same problems remain—actually, they are growing roots and changing faces. Needless to emphasise, the Education Ministry is one of the most crucial ministries, yet teachers continue to be treated like volunteers.

It is time officials took heed of this plea, and found lasting strategies to resolve this problem. Playing around with people’s salaries is as bad as playing around with their lives and those of hundreds of other people that depend on these employees.

How many newspaper editorials need to be written for the plight of the teacher to change? How many negative news stories should the media broadcast? How many strikes should civil servants conduct for Capital Hill to listen?

Any wonder then, that the Education Ministry continues to lose many capable young men and women who opt to seek work, and any work for that matter, outside the teaching profession?

At the moment, there are plenty of young education graduates working abroad in countries such as Qatar, Dubai, Tanzania and Botswana to mention but a few, where word has it that teachers are some of the most well-paid and, I dare bet, right on payday.

Universities and colleges are doing their best to train the teaching workforce. Education courses continue to enrol probably the highest numbers, as compared to other programmes. But what is the use of all this when the education graduates will end up as bank tellers, immigration officers, officer cadets and so on, shunning their area of expertise due to poor working conditions?

It is time to realise the damage being done to innocent pupils and the country at large. The public is innocently paying for the sins of Capital Hill.

There is no frustrated teacher who would offer their best at their job if they are paid late. There are no prizes for guessing why education standards in the country are poor. One major factor is that government is demoralising men and the women in the classroom, who are at the nucleus of activities in the education sector!

—The author is a trained teacher who resigned from Ministry of Education.

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