Dead teachers appearing on promotion list, ministry concedes ‘error’

Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Principal Secretary Justin Saidi, has conceded that there names of deceased teachers appearing on the list of 20 210 teachers it has promoted last week.

“It is true that there are some names if the list of teachers who are dead,” said Saidi after social media revelations of “ghost teachers” on promotion list.

Saidi said the deceased names were included due to an error of an electronic system which generated the names of the promoted teachers.

He said the ministry uses information from the Department of Human Resources Management “which automatically depicted the named”.

Said the ministry is working towards “rectifying the error”.

He said: “Technology is prone to errors.”

Experts have questioned the timing of the promotion of teachers against a background of demands dating back to 2014 by Civil Society on Education Coalition (Csec) and Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) for the same.

Csec executive director Benedicto Kondowe faulted government for delaying to effect them, saying some teachers have served in one position for over 20 years.

“We are mindful that there are 40 000 teachers who need to be promoted. These teachers are not supposed to beg for promotions,” he said.

Saidi defended the timing. He said the promotions have been implemented now because there were processes to be followed.

He claimed that government promotes teachers every four years. However, in 2015, four years back, no teacher was promoted.

Saidi said the promotions were budgeted for; hence, will not have a bearing on bloating the civil service wage bill now at K393.6 billion.

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