Grade ‘stagnant’ Malawi teachers to get promotions, presidential support
Public sector teachers who have stayed for over 8 years without promotion will be specifically recognized for upgrading in position, the Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) says after expressing its grievances with President Mrs. Joyce Banda.
TUM, which met the first citizen on 12th October Friday at the New State House, also reminds that promotion of teachers to Personal to Holder who have overstayed on the same grade is inevitable and that necessary procedures to revisit the abolition of this facility be sanctioned.
“Ministry of Education Science and Technology and Teachers Union of Malawi were urged to quickly meet and make submission to Department of Public Service Management, justifying the need to revoke the Personal to Holder abolition in the Teaching profession,” reads a statement availed to Nyasa Times signed by TUM’s president Chauluka Muwake and secretary general Denis Kalekeni.
Teachers had threatened would go on strike come 19th October if their grievances were not heard and necessary action not taken.
TUM also agreed in the discussions, also attended by both the Ministry of Education Science and Technology officials led by the Deputy Minister of Education Chikumbutso Hiwa as well as the Minister of Labour, Eunice Makangala, that the union collaborates with the Ministry of Education Science and Technology to come up with data (statistics) of how many teachers are on each grade and how many of those have stayed on that particular grade for eight years or more.
The meeting, says TUM, was aimed at finding a mechanism of ensuring that teachers in the public schools that have remained on one grade for eight years or more be considered for promotion to the next higher grade.
The statement adds: “That a deliberate mechanism must be put in place to ensure that the subsequent promotion of teachers to substantive grades through interviews undertaken by the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) should take special recognition of those teachers who have served for a long time on the same grade.”
“Teachers Union of Malawi would like to express its satisfaction over the manner and environment through which the meeting was conducted and it came out clear that it was Her Excellency’s wish to see a speedy process of ensuring that the concerned teachers are given the necessary attention regarding the promotions,” says the release.
The union is in the process to shortly send appropriate forms through its leadership structures to all the 34 District Education Managers (DEM) and the 6 Education Division Managers (EDM) throughout the country requesting for appropriate data.
All public sector teachers, urges the union, should be advised that a declaration of a dispute cannot be effected on 19th October 2012 following the successful meeting with the Head of State.
“All teachers are therefore urged to provide maximum support to the processes agreed and continue teaching. It is high time we all realized that we are where we are because of a teacher and according to this year’s theme of World Teachers Day, “Let us all Take a Stand for Teachers”, concludes the statement.
Malawian teachers in the public sector are normally the least recognized in the public service, getting salaries late and sometimes over months, and whose grades and perks are seldom raised, threatening and compromising the quality of education standards in the country.
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