‘Randy’ teachers warned
... teaching council wont shield anyone
THE Union will not shield any newly recruited teacher who will be involved in sexual offences against school girls, as recent reports of some teachers immoral activities have disgraced the profession, Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT) Secretary General Newman Bubala has said. Mr. Bubala said teaching was a noble profession and did not have room for people who had ill motives towards their clients who are pupils. He said that the teachers were recruited amidst a lot of suspicion of teachers having sexual relations with pupils and it was therefore important that the recruits exhibit high levels of discipline. Mr. Bubala said that school girls were meant to learn and not to be swayed into indulging in sexual relations with their teachers who are supposed to be their mentors. “wherever these teachers go, they should Know that school girls are a no go area, there are many women out there who people can marry and teachers cannot just decide to take advantage of school girls, because we will not protect teachers who are found wanting, it is against the ethics of the profession and as such we will not protect such teachers, ”he said. Mr. Bubala further appealed to government to consider finding a way of recruiting 10,000 more teachers as the number of teachers recruited was not adequate to minimize the challenge of the teacher pupil ratio in the country. He said that 3,000 would reduce the teacher pupil ratio but the number was too minimal to address the challenge, especially in the rural areas. “30,000 teachers applied and only 3000 were picked, so you can see that we still have a lot of unemployed trained teachers and also we need teachers in the country because we have so many pupils in schools, yet the number of teachers countrywide is still very low,”Mr Bubala said.