Zambia: Copperbelt Province Minister Elisha Matambo has asked Teaching Service Commission to consider selecting qualified teachers in rural areas. There are a number of qualified and deserving teaching candidates who have applied for a position during the recruitment process.
However, these applicants are overlooked by the hiring individuals. This has been a cause of concern for the rural teaching population.
It has been observed that teachers hired from the urban areas and cities have to travel long distances to teach in rural areas. As such, several teachers are either late or fail to report for their duties, which hampers the education facilities within rural areas.
Elisha Matambo says most teachers in rural areas are usually left out during the recruitment process from the government. He has called for the Teaching Service Commission to rectify the problem and consider them in the coming recruitments.
The Minister was speaking when a team from the Teaching Service Commission called on him at his office. He said that teachers who apply from urban areas are fond of leaving the areas they are required in, a few months after being recruited.
He reiterated that a teacher raised from the rural area cannot abandon his or her people once deployed. Contrarily, they emerge as the role models in their communities.
Matambo said the commission’s decision to decentralize the disciplinary function to district level is welcome as cases of teachers who have been accused in various incidents will be gotten rid of in due time.
Teaching Service Commission Chairperson Daphne Chimuka says the team is in the province to educate various stakeholders on the function of disciplinary issues.
Chimuka said the Commission noted that disciplinary cases such as one being accused for impregnating a student and excess beer drinking while at school, were taking long to be worked on hence the decision for the functions to be decentralized.