The Ministry of Education has been failing to pay allowances for student teachers who are currently deployed in primary schools across Malawi for teaching practicals since January this year.
President of the student teachers from Blantyre Teachers College, Chancy Manda said the ministry was supposed to pay K20,000 per month as allowance for each student teacher.
She said the teachers are currently doing practicals and we’re supposed to receive the K20,000 each month from January this year but they are disappointed that up to June they did not get any allowances yet they will finish teaching practicals on July 26.
Manda said the ministry only paid K40,000 and K60,000 to a few teachers while many did not receive any allowances.
The teachers claim that they have been in touch with the Deputy Director of Teachers’ Education Service in the ministry Rose Kalizang’oma with no success and they complained that sometimes the deputy director does not pick up their calls.
Manda added that most teachers owe people a lot of money in their respective locations where they are doing their practicals and they don’t know how to pay back money in the absence of allowances.
“We appeal to the ministry to pay us the allowances for seven months we have been in the field for practicals,” he added.
Rose Kalizang’oma acknowledged the complaint and has been discussing the issue several times.
She advised the student’s teacher to list down the names of those affected and should hand the names to their respective principals so that they send the names to the Ministry of Education headquarters.
She however declined to comment more on the issue but referred Malawi24 to the Ministry of Education’s Public Relations Officer, Mphatso Nkuonera.
Nkuonera said he needs more time to respond to the issue.
