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Ministry moves to flush out ghost teachers
By
Our Reporter - 03-06-2002 |
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The Ministry of Education said on Friday it will pay teachers in primary and community day secondary schools using a roll call system to corner “ghost teachers” who have cost government millions of kwacha.
Secretary for Basic Education Beaton Munthali said in an interview that under the new system, teachers are required to gather at zone centres in their respective education divisions where they would get their pay after producing academic and professional certificates, among other credentials.
“We want to ensure that the money government is paying is going to the rightful people. Some teachers died a long time ago, others resigned or retired but their money has been going to wrong people,” he said.
Munthali said during a pilot exercise in Central-west Education Division in April Ministry of Education cashiers, accompanied by officials from the Auditor General and the Department of Human Resource Management, ended up with “thousands of unclaimed money” which was later redeposited into the ministry’s account.
He said a full picture of how many ghost teachers and cheating officers would be available after the exercise.
But Teachers Union of Malawi (Tum) general secretary Lucien Chikadza on Thursday condemned the system and expressed fear it would contribute to poor results because teachers would spend more time waiting for their pay instead of teaching.
Chikadza said it was unfair for the ministry to demand from teachers certificates and employment numbers when head teachers provide monthly returns with the same details to district education managers.
But Munthali maintained the physical head count was necessary because, saying the Central-west Education Division development revealed that most head teachers were colluding with pay masters and shared millions of kwacha purportedly paid to teachers who died, retired or resigned but were still on the payroll.
He said some of the returns provided by head teachers were fake while other heads took six or more months without reporting.
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