Teachers across the country are racing against time to meet the demands for Teachers Council of Malawi (TCM) K25,000 each for their licenses with fears that failing to pay this amount after the expiry of the deadline, which is 31st December 2024, they will no longer be teachers come January 2025.
Even though these teachers are forcibly encouraged to pay K25,000 each, most of them do not know the objectives under which the TCM was established and are just paying the money, unknowingly afraid of losing jobs.
Unlike the Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM), which deducts K1000 each from each teacher by virtue of joining the teaching profession, TCM is receiving payment of K25,000 through the bank deposited by themselves and not direct deductions on their pay slips.
However, it has been established that some teachers have not paid TCM k25,000 through their respective banks for various reasons one major one being the money is too huge and contrary to what teachers are pocketing per month as their salaries.
In the past, from the reign of Kamuzu Banda, Bakili Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika, Joyce Banda, and Arthur Peter Mutharika, long-serving teachers were issued with Authority to Teach as licenses for free.
When President Lazarus Chakwera and his MCP were voted into government in June 2020, they brought in new reforms in the education sector, one of it being paying K25,000 for Teaching Licenses, a development which is making some teachers shake their heads as If they have horns in disbelief.
Mrs Esnath Kaliza Banda of Area 49 in Lilongwe, a retired teacher, has asked the authorities to explain to the teachers why they are demanding K25,000 from each teacher, making the Teachers Council of Malawi (TCM) the richest organization on the land not only Malawi but the whole world.
Kaliza said it is sad that besides teachers receiving low salaries per month, the government is milking K25,000 each without mercy, claiming that some teachers have gone for no promotion for 20 years in service, and the government is demanding K25,000 from those that are considered to be useless in the public service.
She said as of today, teachers across the country are affiliated with two teachers’ bodies, TUM and TCM, wondering what it is exactly the government is looking for from teachers claiming that teachers are being invited to sit for promotion interviews while those picked are the ones not even attended the interviews.
“If each teacher is paying TCM 25,000, how much is the government collecting from over 80,000 teachers across the country? At first, TUM was the richest organization and this time, TCM is the richest and is worth being called a standalone organization,” said Kaliza.
She has appealed to all teachers across the country never and ever to give votes to the MCP government, this government has no welfare of teachers at heart advising those who will pick to man registration and voting centres, not to exchange their pain and sufferings with money from MCP for it to bounce back into government in 2025.
By Sarah Gwetsani
