Improve funding to education sector, Govt advised

GOVERNMENT should increase funding to the education sector for quality education to be attained in schools, the National Action for Quality Education in Zambia (NAQUEZ) has advised.

NAQUEZ Executive Director, Aaron Chansa, observed that the low funding to the sector was negatively affecting a number of issues, leading to poor performance of the pupils.

Mr Chansa observed that a lot of teachers were going for years without confirmation, a situation he said demoralized them more.

He explained that the pupil teacher ratio was also not healthy especially in rural areas where teachers were subjected to attending to so many pupils due to lack of the recruitment of many teachers.

He added that the lack of adequate teaching and learning materials, school furniture as well as enough classroom space also led to the poor performance of pupils in government schools.

Mr Chansa was speaking in an interview with the Daily Nation in Kitwe.

Mr Chansa said with inadequate funding came the demotivation of teachers who had been on the same salary for a long time despite the inflation rate being on the higher side.

"We cannot expect learners in Government schools to perform better when teachers who are the engines driving the education sector are not well taken care of. "Nothing much can be expected from a demoralized teacher whose salary has been static for years on top of a work overload," he said.