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The National Action for Quality Education in Zambia (NAQEZ) has proposed the establishment of a bank that would cater for the needs of the teachers.
NAQEZ Executive Director, Aaron Chansa, said today, three quarters of teachers in Zambia were highly indebted chiefly because of contracting very expensive loans meant for furthering their teaching qualifications.
Chansa said this in a statement issued in Lusaka on Sunday and made available to Zambia Monitor.
He said since commercial banks and other financial institutions were still offering poverty-inducing loans, there was urgent need for the teachers in Zambia to take advantage of their big number to quickly and collectively establish a bank that would offer them loans at five percent or less.
Chansa said this monumental shift would, without doubt, help most of the struggling teachers to cheaply offset the current loans they are painfully servicing.
“If government allows this formation and each of the 135,000 public service teachers just contributes a K450 through the payroll, more than K60 million will be raised and Zambia will be the second country in Africa to set up a financial institution for cheaper loans for teachers,” he said.
Chansa said because loan recoveries would be done through the government payroll and that professionals would be employed to run the bank, success and sustainability were guaranteed.
He said that in Kenya, the Mwalimu National Sacco had powerfully helped thousands of teachers to avoid expensive borrowing.
“In Australia, the Teachers Mutual Bank is a major economic tool teachers have been using for personal prosperity. Once formed in Zambia, the teachers bank will be owned by teachers themselves,” Chansa said.
He said that this would be governed and overseen by their own board and the teachers in respective provinces would elect one from among themselves to sit on the board.
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Chansa said these board members would hire a competent management team to ethically and credibly run the bank.
“Profits made by this bank will be reinvested into the business for an increased number of cheaper loans for teachers. NAQEZ hopes that government, all teachers and other stakeholders will embrace this proposal,” he said.
Chansa said once in place, the bank would empower and motivate teachers for improved quality of education in the country.
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