Lecturers’ strike continues
University of Malawi (Unima) lecturers at Chancellor College and The Polytechnic are continuing with industrial action to force government to increase their perks, thereby disrupting the already out-of-tune university calendar.
Following the action, the registrar of Chancellor College issued a press statement over the weekend, advising continuing and first year students that the 2013/14 academic year which was due to open was not going to open.
The college said the failure to open was due to reasons beyond the university’s control.
The registrar said the opening of the college shall be communicated to all students in due course through the media.
The lecturers, through their unions, accused government of failing to meet a commitment it made on September 12 2013 to adjust their salaries by 25 percent across the board effective July 1 2013.
As of yesterday, it was not clear if lecturers at other colleges such as Kamuzu College of Nursing (KNC) and College of Medicine (CoM) were going to join the strike.
The negotiations between government and the lecturers’ representatives, whose minutes The Nation has seen, were initiated by Unima lecturers through their welfare committees and the University Workers Trade Union after it was discovered that the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) had implemented salaries that were 25 percent higher than those of their colleagues under Unima.
The university calendar was seriously disrupted during the almost three-month-old academic freedom battle during the reign of former president Bingu wa Mutharika.
