Conduct teaching staff audit to weed out fake unionists, Mbumba tells government

The government has been urged to conduct a staff audit on all government schools both in rural and urban areas.

Movement for Restoration of Teachers Affairs (MORETA) Executive Director, Dr Samuel Mbumba, said this in a statement issued in Lusaka on Monday.

Mbumba said this would help to ascertain the number of teachers who had left classrooms but are now parading themselves as unionists.

He stated that some teachers are now parading themselves as unionists without secondment letters from the Ministry of Education.

Mbumba noted that this would help the government to know how many teachers had abandoned their work and are contributing to the poor results at school level.

“What is even shocking is that even school Administrators including some at District Education Boards (DEBs) and Provincial Education Office (PEOs) level have also joined the bandwagon of unionism,” Mbumba stated.

He said instead of sticking to their roles as Administrators, such teachers were now making the situation worse in carrying out government duties.

Mbumba wondered why the employer had decided to shoot itself by entertaining such barbaric behavior and further asked whether it was benefiting from the confusion.

“The Teaching Service Commission should be worried about this scenario on top of illegal transfers which are depriving the poor Zambian child from accessing quality education,” he said.

Mbumba urged the Teaching Service Commission and the Ministry of Education to up their game and be on top of things.

He said that if the situation was left unchecked and tamed, the country would have schools with fewer teachers left and yet on paper the government would be counting to have enough.

“Much has been said by concerned citizens that some schools fail to perform at grade 7, 9 and 12 level due to the poor pupil teacher ratio in most schools country wide and yet the government deploys teachers every year,” Mbumba added.

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