Education expert doubts government will employ 10, 000 teachers
An education expert has doubted government’s announcement that it intends to recruit 10, 000 primary school and secondary teachers now,
saying this might be a ploy just to buy time ahead of the 2019 elections.
Civil Society on Education Network executive director Benedict Kondowe said the teachers, who graduated from various colleges two years ago, have not been employed yet.
“What the ministry has said is that all teachers should report to their nearest education district office and fill the GP 1 forms. They can fill the forms and be told to go home and wait until next year,” said Kondowe.
He said the teachers should have been told to go and fill the forms and immediately get posted.
“This might be just be a ploy by the government to buy time,” he said.
But ministry of Education spokesperson Lindiwe Chide said the government has the money to pay the teachers after the passing of the national budget.
“The government already budgeted for the employment of the teachers in the budget. They will be employed very soon in this financial year,” said Chide.
The issue of creation of employment has been a hot campaign issue in the run up to the 2019 general election after vice president Saulos
Chilima who is now the president of the United Transformation Movement said he would create one million jobs once voted into power next year.
President Peter Mutharika has already challenged Chilima on this, saying this is impossible.
United States of America (USA) has 50 countries with a population of 367 million but for the past four years has only managed to create 2 million jobs. To compare Malawi a country of only 17 million with the USA is a none starter. Furthermore promising Malawians a bullet-train like the ones in the USA between Blantyre and Lilongwe is sheer madness. This will require digging a tunnel that is called a subway between Blantyre and Lilongwe KKKKKKK This nonsense must stop.
Pa 1 million ndiye kuti kwasala about 990 thousand. So if the government is claiming that it can do this just from one profession, the we add nurses, soldiers, police, prison, etc then may be Chilima was right.
The whole civil service has about 200,000 employees. Malawi economy is too small, it cant employee 1 Million people the next three years. if 10000 employees are employed in every sector, it may be a maximum of 300,00 which employers and government might not be able to pay their salaries. This is a fact not politics to it. we have seen companies downsizing and retrenching employees because of failure to pay them.