Teachers to Start Paying for Teaching License
By Sarah Gwetsani……
The establishment of a new teacher’s body, Teachers Council of Malawi, has come with strategies of milking teachers who already have unresolved issues with their mother body-Teachers Union of Malawi “(TUM)”.
Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) is deducting K500 from each and every teacher every month by virtue of being a teacher regardless of whether one has signed for membership fee or not, this has been ongoing for years but teachers have been complaining in their hearts making TUM, the richest out of all organizations in Malawi looking at its membership which is over 80,000.
In what many teachers thought that TUM will be fighting for their interests, TUM executive members are fighting for their own benefits, being rewarded from government for stopping planned sit-in by teachers while them pocket millions of Kwachas for a job beautifully done.
The Teachers Council of Malawi has been born with new ideas that each and every teacher in Malawi starting from qualified teachers, student teachers or auxiliary teachers, one has to have a paid teaching license totaling to K40,000 per year.
Teachers have expressed mixed feelings with the demands of the Teachers Council of Malawi of K40,000 paying license while nurses are paying K18,000 per year in the same country where economic woos are the order of the day.
Political activist Bon Elias Kalindo has asked all teachers in Malawi to say “NO” to Teachers Council of Malawi demands claiming that teachers are pocketing meagre salaries per month not meeting their everyday life situations demands.
Kalindo has reminded Malawians that from 1994, Malawi is in democracy hence a great need to consult teachers themselves on what best can be done to them other than imposing paying teaching licenses without getting their views.
He said Teachers Council of Malawi has join a bandwagon of organizations corrupting citizens in Malawi saying it is no wonder Malawians are living in a country where corruption has spared no individual, all are corrupt including the President.
The activist has since questioned teachers why to have two mother bodies representing their wishes and aspirations observing that if one body is not working on their side, its better to disband it and opt to have one body other than having two bodies to milk them.
“Why having a teaching license, is teaching certificate not enough for a license? We are living in a country of corruption,” said Kalindo.
