Former education minister Michael Kaingu says there is need to deal with the challenge of accommodation for teachers who have been recruited.
He said it looks like no one cares about where the teachers are going to be staying adding that the challenge is huge and should not be left to government alone.
According to The Mast, Dr Kaingu said youthful teachers end up staying in villages while female teachers end up marrying villagers in order to find where to stay hence the need to deal with the accommodation challenge.
“My heartfelt congratulations to the new dawn government for recruiting over 30,000 teachers. However, it looks like nobody really cares about where these teachers will be staying. If there is a group of civil servants who suffer from lack of accommodation are teachers. Some schools which have expanded in both numbers of teachers and enrollment of pupils have only four houses which were built either during Northern Rhodesia or early UNIP government days,” he said. “The teaching service’s infrastructure is appalling to say the least. Just pose for a minute and ask the question, where shall over 30,000 teachers stay? Youthful teachers end up staying in villages, as for some of our female teachers end up marrying villagers in order to find where to stay.”
Dr Kaingu suggested that unions and the government contribute money to import prefabricated houses.
“When I was the minister of education, science, vocational and early education I wanted to tackle this problem. I called almost all the leaders of teachers’ unions to a meeting to discuss this heart breaking problem. In that meeting I reminded them of this vexing problem. I told them that the only way we could solve this problem of teachers’ housing is by us coming up with a fund that would import prefabricated houses,” said Dr Kaingu. “Since the problem is huge it cannot be for the government alone, all unions must contribute some money to this fund and the ministry will too contribute to this fund. The teachers’ unions leaders were so excited about it and we resolved that we should quickly establish a modality for creating the fund. Unfortunately, the ministry was soon to be split into two and I was sent to the ministry of higher education. I don’t know how far this initiative has been taken. If this initiative can help in creating new houses for teachers, I propose that it is relooked into. I hope and pray that there is a union leader out there who can remember this meeting. However, if there is none I pray this idea sits well with my colleagues both in the Ministry of Education and unions leaders.”