THE Teaching Service Commission says it will dismiss any teacher found with fake teaching or academic qualifications.
In an interview, commission chairperson Stanley M’hango said 263 teachers have been dismissed by the service as they were compromising the profession.

“The teachers who were found with forged documents were dismissed by the teaching service through the teaching profession Act. The process of looking for fake qualifications is still on-going and it was a directive given by the President [Edgar Lungu] that the teaching service brings sanity to the teaching profession,” he said.

M’hango said the service has also discovered that some unknown persons have been offering fake transfers to teachers, an act that the service would not tolerate.
“We are removing everyone masquerading as a teacher and those persons giving fake transfers to teachers will be dealt with because according to the commission service Act, an officer who will be found misleading the service on the issue of employment, commits an offence and he/she will be dealt with and will be dismissed from the service,” he said.

M’hango has since given teachers across the country up to June 8 to go back to their pay points to avoid being cut off from the payroll.

“We have given instructions that all those who were transferred and are still getting their salaries from their previous stations, we have given them an ultimatum that by June 8 this year they should go back or find a pay point within their operations and not their previous stations because what we discovered is that when people are moved to other places, they still come back and draw salaries thereby bringing in confusion and inequalities among the people in rural areas because when you recruit, our system shows that there are teachers even when they have been moved,” said M’hango.

“I also want to emphasise [to] the DEBS [District Education Board Secretaries] not to transfer teachers where there are no vacancies because the regulation is not being respected and as a result it has created a lot of confusion.”