Of stinking rich, unpaid teachers and orphans from Thyolo

The trials and tribulations visited upon university students are apparently not restricted to institutions of higher learning. In Thyolo District, the home district of President Bingu wa Mutharika, primary school students have not been learning for two weeks, as of last week.

In this case, it is not because of the police infringing on Academic Freedom, no. It is to do with basic survival. Teachers are demanding K5,000 (about $30) per month rural hardship allowance which government introduced in July 2010 as an incentive for teachers who work in rural and difficult environments.

Some teachers are being owed as much as K55, 000 (about $330) in arrears accrued from the introduction of the allowance; hence their refusal to teach. The District Education Manager reportedly refused to give them the hardship allowances, claiming that the schools are not beneficiaries of the allowances because they are in an urban setting.

The question that the teachers are asking the district education authority is: if they are living in an urban setting and therefore disqualified for hardship allowance, why are they not being paid house allowance? Thyolo education authorities have yet to provide a rational and lucid answer to this question.

Mutharika

The Thyolo teachers' sad predicament, like the Chancellor College stand-off, is getting complex with each passing day and is increasingly negatively impacting all sectors. For instance, students in some of the schools where teachers are refusing to teach are supposed to benefit from the school feeding programme. Sadly, this has come to a halt.

The result is increased starvation and malnutrition, eroding some of the gains made by Malawi to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Again, this is taxing, to the limit, parents of the children. The Weekend Nation told the story of one Joseph, a bicycle taxi-operator at Thyolo. Joseph, says that as a parent, his home's budget is being overstretched due to the strike.

“I have four children in classes two, four, six and seven. All of them are at home now. It is difficult to keep them with the high cost of food,” he said.

When the children are in school, Joseph only budgets for evening meals because during the day they rely on the school-feeding programme.

“Now, I budget for breakfast, lunch and supper. This is hurting me because I do not earn a lot from the menial jobs I do,” said Joseph.

Looking beyond Joseph and his children, who at least have a parent engaged in some sort of gainful activity that puts food on the table, there are orphans. For Peter, an orphan from Mpiyama Village, school is practically a matter of life and death. He and others in his situation virtually depend on the school-feeding programme to live.

“Even if I go home now, there will be nothing to eat.” Obviously, this stand-off is death sentence for Peter and others like him.

Corruption, inefficiency, negligence, and lack of fairness seem to be the centre of the problem.

“There are more issues than meets the eye here. We know that some teachers at the same school are receiving the hardship allowance…. Some officers in the DEM office are receiving the same allowance. Are we not the deserving teachers?” This is the question posed by one teacher, who concludes to say that,

“It is this disparity that we are fighting against.”

The wrangle has left nothing untouched. Also affected is schools' and pupils' performance. From Nachipere Primary School, 52 pupils were selected to secondary schools in 2009. 65 were selected in 2010. This year it has only managed 21. Evidently, teachers' morale in this presidential district of Thyolo, is at an all-time low.

For the Ministry of Education, which during this term of President Mutharika's office, has been without any minister worth the name, it is business as usual. According to the Secretary for Education, a Mr John Bisika, the ministry sent a team to Thyolo to investigate the issue. And that's it. That is it. Is Mr Bisika serious with our young nation's education?

If the reason for the Thyolo primary school students' sufferance did not emanate from the abuse that their teachers are being subjected to, one would have been tempted to conclude that the students are being groomed to get used to not attending classes so that when they go to the University, thanks to the quota system, they find it normal. But that is not the case. The teachers ought to be paid their dues for educating the nation.

All these developments happening in a country where the president is using every opportunity to lavish praise on himself; where the president and the president to be – Thyolo citizens by the way – are busy throwing millions and millions of kwachas at vendors and football show one thing: the Mutharika brothers are here only to look after number one becoming filthy rich in the process, while the nation suffers from neglect.

Who in his right senses can therefore stand up fault those that are agitating for better governance? Who in his right senses can blame anyone that goes further and clamours for regime change? Are gays, the IMF, the Word Bank, Colonialists, NGOs and the media responsible for this mess in his backyard?

The Thyolo teachers, and for that matter all Malawians deserve better. No single country in the world has developed in an environment where corruption, inefficiency, negligence, and lack of fairness have found a fertile breeding ground – right in the president's backyard.

If President Mutharika cannot solve these simple issues, and do so before things get out of hand, he should give way to others – now!

I rest my case.

 *Wise One from the East

Nyasa Times 19 Sep, 2011

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Source: http://www.nyasatimes.com/columns/of-stinking-rich-unpaid-teachers-and-orphans-from-thyolo/
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