By Lumbiwe Mwanza
TEACHERS in private schools are still getting peanuts and this has contributed to most of them leaving the profession, National Union of Public and Private Educators of Zambia (NUPPEZ) General Secretary, Nelson Mwale, has charged.
Mr. Mwale says as Government is making strides in employing teachers, the private sector should scale up interventions of improving working conditions in view of sustaining a competent teaching workforce and be able to close the current teacher deficit.
He says as Government embarks on the recruitment exercise, it is important that the private sector improves further its working conditions in terms of remuneration as this will help in tackling factors that contribute to teachers quitting or dissuading them from working hard towards building a more resilient education sector.
“The private sector has continued to pay peanuts to our teachers. This has contributed to some of them leaving the sector which in turn continues to undermine efforts of closing the teacher-pupil ratio” Mr. Mwale said.
He notes that quitting in the educational sector can be addressed through attractive incentives and that the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on education will be enhanced.
Recently, Government announced that Zambia has at least 150,000 teacher deficits despite an earlier recruitment of 30,000 as well as other planned recruitments this year.
