Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) and a group called Unemployed Teachers have expressed reservations with the Ministry of Education’s decision to engage 4 200 temporary auxiliary teachers this year.
The teachers will be engaged under the Malawi Education Reform Programme and are expected to report at their various work stations on September 1 2024, according to the Ministry of Education.
In a statement yesterday, Secretary for Education Mangani Katundu said the 4 200 will be placed in all the 32 education districts.
He warned that those who will not have reported for work by September 15 2024 will lose their place.
Reads the statement: “The ministry has also increased the monthly honoraria the auxiliary teachers will be receiving by 50 percent to K120 000.
“The engagement of the auxiliary teachers forms part of efforts by government to reduce the pupil-qualified teacher ratio across the country.”
But in an interview yesterday, the Unemployed Teachers spokesperson Cornelius Mwalela said government was supposed to permanently employ current auxiliary teachers before engaging the 4 200.
He said: “A reasonable number of teachers could have been employed permanently and at least a smaller number on a temporary basis.
“But what the government has done is they have renewed contracts of those who were already working as auxiliary teachers.”
Mwalela said there are about 13 000 teachers who are not employed as of August 12 2024.
On his part, TUM secretary general Charles Kumchenga said serving auxiliary teachers deserve to be employed as permanent teachers as they have waited for a long time to be fully employed.
“TUM was not consulted. If we were consulted, we would have told the ministry that serving auxiliary teachers should be recruited on a permanent basis first before new ones are engaged,” he said.
The 2024/25 education sector analysis by local and international non-governmental organisations shows that Malawi needs to recruit over 52 000 teachers to reduce the teacher-pupil ratio and improve education standards.
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