The Zambia union of professional educators ZUPED has called on the government to be vested in the wellbeing of teachers and improve their conditions of service.
Speaking at the burial of one of the union members and recently recruited teacher Dorcas Shaibila, ZUPED president Richwell Mweene has bemoaned the lack of a government representative at the funeral of the deceased teacher.
“As a union we were hoping to see a representative from the ministry of education from the human resource department but instead they sent a school head teacher which is disappointing for us as a union”, he expressed.
And Mr. Mweene called on the government to ensure transparency in the replacement of the deceased teacher and others.
“When incidents like these happen, we do not know how the replacements are done, we are just left in suspense over the procedures”, he said.
He also called for transparency on teacher recruitment processes.
And union Secretary General Mooka Sibeta has called on the government to ensure teachers are respected and honoured in society by improving their conditions of service.
Mr. Sibeta noted that teachers are usually getting loans to supplement their salaries hence the union provides salary advance and non interest loans to support their members.
“Teachers are no longer respected in society because they are candidates of loan shacks that is why as ZUPED we give salary advances to our members and non interest loans to help them. We are appealing to the government to improve conditions of service for teachers to increase their buying power as things are expensive”, he appealed.
