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| Mzura |
Teachers who are
seeking promotion after having ‘self upgrade’ to Diploma and Degrees levels are
now demanding for automatic promotion and not undergo for interviews.
This comes when Ministry
of Education, Science and Technology officials announced on Wednesday during a
round table meeting between Parliamentary Committee on Education and the
delegation of Self Upgraded Teachers that ‘a round’ process of promoting upgraded
teachers has begun but will have to passing through interviews.
Secretary for
Teaching Service Commission, Richard Kayesa informed the Committee and Teachers
that the Ministry began the process of promoting teachers in March this year with
invitation of applications from all upgraded teachers to fill-in the vacant
posts and that the list of successful candidates has been released to the
public and interviews will begin from Monday next week until May 11, 2016.
Although, Chairperson
for Self Upgraded Teachers, David Mzura, made acknowledgement that teachers have
applied for the advertised posts, but reacted that the interview process was
not the actual promotion arrangement that self-upgraded teachers were supposed to
go through.
He said “We are
not satisfied with the decision that has been made because they have followed wrong
procedure. At pre-graduation meeting at Domasi College, we were told to submit
our copies immediately after graduation so that we could be promoted
immediately.” added “We submitted 20 copies to the division soon after
graduation”
One of Self
Upgraded Teachers also commented saying the interview policy came later after
they issued a petition in 2014 to the ministry seeking clarification. The concerned
teacher further observed that the ministry is applying the policy selectively
because despite them being subjected to interviews, others have recently been
promoted without interviews.
When the Chairperson
for the committee, Elias Chakwera, asked the ministry to clarify about the
interview Policy, Director of Human Resource in the Ministry, Joyce Somanje
said interview policy is not new development but only that teachers did not
know that the policy exist. She said every person in Civil Service who wants
promotion after upgrading goes thought the same process and “It is a normal
policy and requirement that teachers cannot be exempted from”
The officials
from the Ministry of Education also indicated that it is not automatic that one
who upgrade can be promoted because there are a lot of people now upgrading and
therefore the ministry cannot accommodate all of them at once.
“We were asked
to submit the copies of certificates for us to be promoted automatically and
this is not what is going to happen.” Insists Mzura later in an interview
The total number
of teachers eligible for promotion are in four categories; 1,500 Secondary
School teachers (Grade TI), 220 Teacher Training College (TTC) Lectures (Grade
TI), 1,700 Secondary School Teachers (Grade TJ with Diploma in Education) and 300
Principal Primary School Teachers-Special Needs (Grade TJ with Diploma).
The concerned
teachers also fear that the interview policy will see many of them being left
out since the ministry wants to promote very few.
According to figures
from the Ministry, there are only 483 vacancies for the post of Secondary
School Teachers Grade TI against a total of 872 applicants invited to compete
for the post while for the post of TTC Lecture Grade TI, there are only 50
vacancies yet 116 applicants will compete for the post.
And 586 applicants
have been invited to compete for the post of Secondary School Teacher Grade TJ which
has 516 vacant positions while 229 applicants have been invited for the post of
Principal Primary School Teachers-Special Needs Grade TJ which has only 169 positions.
“If you have
seen the statistics they have given us, you will find that a large number of
teachers will not have a chance of being promoted to the next grade. And they
have to wait for another four years to be promoted’’ Observed Mzura
‘’So, if you are
a worker and you are demotivated, how are you going to work effectively?’’ wondered
Mzura, ‘’And therefore when we are
saying that quality education is being affected in Malawi this is one of the
issues that is causing this because teachers are being demotivated.”
He then said they
will continue holding discussions with the Ministry in order to find ways how
the problem can be solved.
