331 secondary school teachers down tools
Three hundred and thirty-one secondary school teachers in five education divisions nationwide are staging a sit-in to force government to pay them arrears and rural allowances.
But Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) has said it is not aware of the strike.
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) in April this year recruited 500 secondary school teachers, but 169 of them have not joined the sit-in as some are reported to be on probation while others had their arrears cleared.
In an interview yesterday, the teachers’ representative of the teachers Jameson Boti said they have tried to engage the ministry and TUM on their grievances but to no avail.
“TUM’s response has always been that they are monitoring the situation, but nothing tangible has happened so far. This has forced many to fall into debt and it is not a good situation to be in,” he said.
Boti said they wrote MoEST Principal Secretary Justin Saidi last week to notify him of the sit-in but they did not get any response.
Efforts to talk to Saidi proved futile as his phone was out of reach. But last month he told The Nation that the ministry is aware of the grievances and it was working to facilitate the payments.
TUM general secretary Charles Kumchenga said in a separate interview he was not aware of the sit-in.
He said: “What we know is that there are some teachers within that cohort and other long-serving teachers who are owed allowances in arrears.”
The arrears were accrued from April to July this year. According to Boti, 76 of the striking teachers are from Central West Education Division, 61 from Central East Education Division, 74 from South West Education Division, 65 from South East Education Division and 55 from Shire Highlands Education Division.
