- Stay Connected
Socialize
Phiri Directs Teaching Council to Register All Teachers
EDUCATION minister Dr John Phiri has directed the newly appointed Teaching Council of Zambia to register all teachers in Zambia and regulate their professional conduct.
Officiating at the inauguration ceremony of the newly established Teaching Council of Zambia in Lusaka on Friday, Dr Phiri further directed the council to ensure that all registered teachers were qualified.
“The Act defines a teacher as a person who is qualified, registered and teaches or instructs, a head of school or an education unit at any other educational institution, other than a university,” he said.
Dr Phiri said the council should accredit colleges of education, monitor quality control and assurance of education facilities and services.
He added that the council should develop, maintain and improve appropriate standards of qualifications in the teaching profession and promote continuing professional development among teachers.
Dr Phiri said the council must create awareness of the importance of protecting the public against unsound teaching practices and ensure that rules and guidelines of professional ethics were responsive to the expectations of the public and those who were relying on the teaching profession.
“I want to urge the council to raise the character and status of the teaching profession to promote honourable and good practice so as to increase the confidence of the public in teachers,” he said.
He also called on the new council to prescribe and publish a code of ethics for teachers and publish it in the gazette and a daily newspaper of general circulation in Zambia.
And Dr Phiri warned private schools in Zambia to stop re-employing teachers dismissed from public schools due to misconduct.
He said re-employing such teachers had led to failure to adhere to their professional ethics and code of conduct because the system had not been adequate to check on such cases.
“It is trust that some of our schools have in the past and even at present employed unqualified personnel in institutions of learning and this has manifested itself in the poor quality outcomes,” said Dr Phiri.
Meanwhile, council representative Thomas Mtonga expressed optimism that the council would bring sanity to Zambia’s teaching fraternity.
He said the council would play a vital role in resuscitating the value and dignity that Zambian teachers had lost.
“Honourable minister, you will agree with me that a long time ago, teachers in the country were respected because of the high ethical values that they upheld in the colonial regime and in the early days of this country, but down the line, we must have lost it all,” he said.
“Today when you ask a class of 50 pupils to say who would want to become a teacher in future, none of them would lift up their hands and the question is why? It’s because they witness and see teachers being brought or taken home on wheelbarrows because they are too drunk, or sometimes abusing the children,” said Mtonga.
Posted by Editor
on June 29, 2014. Filed under LATEST NEWS.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Maliwa m
June 29, 2014 at 10:14 pm
Politicians hv gone round in o parties after being fired from one party.Why bringing yo cheap politics to us?Why do you say pvt schools ar beta where there ar fired and retired or rejected us?
Katrina
June 30, 2014 at 12:51 am
Hi, I do believe this is an excellent web site. I stumbledupon it
I will return yet again since i have saved as a favorite it. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and continue to guide others.
KAFUNDISHA
June 30, 2014 at 1:17 am
Whats wrong with this website? I spend a lot of time writing my comments and yet they are not published.
KAFUNDISHA
June 30, 2014 at 1:19 am
Ba Mtonga tekanyeni. The reason why pupils would not want to become teachers is because teachers are paid little money and have seen them suffering. Right now, even the extra allowance we were getting is already removed from our payslip. You remove my k800 and you expect me to work hard? I have been getting that allowance for 12 years now. Which sanity will you bring back? If you want me to work hard and pass my students, bring back first my extra duty allowance, then other things will follow. Worse still, no tuitions…ALA BWAFYA ukuba teacher.
kakolwe
June 30, 2014 at 3:42 am
Here goes Phiri again, making unresearched conclusions. That council will just work to intimidate poor teachers with deregistration. It will not add any value to the teacher. Untrained teachers are still handling pupils in Zambia. You have imposed an employment freeze.
Teaching is a last resort employment in Zambia because teachers are poor slaves of Kaloba from loan sharks and banks.
Judas
June 30, 2014 at 6:16 am
@KAFUNDISHA you are very much right with your observations.I have 8 grownup children and none of them is a teacher.When I worked as a teacher I discovered that teaching profession is held in very low esteem by society-where a clinical officer or just a simple zambia enrolled nurse(ZEN)is looked upon higher than a teacher on the index of social status in Society.After doing some other courses I quit teaching profession and joined somewhere I felt respected by society.I also told my children that if they wanted to be regarded as riff-raffs in society,let them join teaching profession and be given a useless term Ba SIR by pupils and suffer for life.Iam now happy none of my 8 children is in teaching career..poor conditions/kaloba/kachasu/confined in the compounds/shanties or live in the jungles of zambia for life.Awe bane.
Allergic to 90 Days lies
June 30, 2014 at 6:34 am
I pray and hope BURRET won’t insult this time,pew!
Popopo
June 30, 2014 at 7:11 am
amasushi yeka yeka Teaeching service and Teaching Council……….. Same as Beef Sausage and Mince Meat
Popopo
June 30, 2014 at 7:11 am
amasushi yeka yeka Teaching service and Teaching Council……….. Same as Beef Sausage and Mince Meat
beev
June 30, 2014 at 9:40 am
is this coming after failing to pay the teachers or what? i heard teachers from certain parts of the country are yet to be paid
tutu
June 30, 2014 at 6:33 pm
ama working conditions na ma payments tayawama, hence utu baiche ukutombwa maningi ukupwisha ama shoku nama stress
http://sales.emersivetech.com
July 11, 2014 at 8:12 am
rca dvi cable
zepppelin.com
July 20, 2014 at 7:17 pm
rca hdmi cable review
chikwesa
July 27, 2014 at 8:18 am
ok ba mutonga chikopo