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Chancellor College lecturers, a constituent college of University of Malawi, on Tuesday downed their chalk in protest against salary delays for this March and because they are demanding an apology from final year Education students who issued threats to lecturers against their proposal to shorten their academic calendar.
College Principal Francis Moto said on Tuesday in an interview the lecturers decided to go on strike because of salary delays for March but said the college is doing everything possible to pay those who have not been paid.
Moto said the college received communication from Treasury on Monday informing them that they are disbursing funds to all accounts and that should there be further delays, the college should negotiate for a temporary draft with the bank.
“I am right now negotiating for an overdraft from National Bank because it is only those who get their salaries through this bank that have not been paid,” he said.
Efforts to get comments from the staff union on Tuesday failed because the union president Dr Goodwin Zimba had just passed away.
One lecturer who asked for anonymity explained that the lecturers decided to go on strike because they wanted the students to apologise by Friday last week.
“Some students did that but others refused and we as the academic community at Chancellor College reached consensus and agreed that we go on strike whether the salary issue is resolved or not as long as the students don’t apologise by 12 noon today (Tuesday),” he said.
The Education students boycotted classes last week immediately after the faculty dismissed their proposal to cut the academic year to accommodate the five-week teaching practice in four years.
The students’ proposal would have meant that they finish their programme in the fourth year and not in five years as is currently the case.
The faculty denied that proposal on grounds that they were going to set a bad precedence and that they were going to release students not fully qualified.
This development led to the head of Education Department resigning after he received threats from the students.
Moto on Tuesday confirmed that there was another problem involving the Education final year students but declined to comment, saying that there are talks going on to resolve the issue.
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