RESOLVE KCE CONFUSION

THE brewing confusion at Kitwe College of Education (KCE) where the principal is said to have infuriated lecturers because of his alleged refusal to move to the Ministry of Education headquarters in Lusaka should urgently be nipped in the bud. It is only prudent that the muddle involving the principal, Mr Andrew Mutobo is quickly resolved before the situation gets out of hand. Prevention is always better than cure! As tempers slowly begin to flare, the principal and the Ministry of Education should quickly engage in dialogue and prevent the confusion from degenerating into another crisis. This college has in the past been dogged by divisions and other problems that have disturbed classes at the institution – the more reasons this should not be allowed to continue. Chances are that once the lecturers get fed up, they might resort to boycotting classes which would in turn infuriate the students and compel them to join in the ensuing fracas. Worse still, the angry lecturers might end up locking Mr Mutobo out of the office judging by their sentiments pertaining to their principal’s reported resistance to move to Lusaka. Such things have happened before in other institutions of higher learning in the recent past and this is the last thing the nation wants to hear. The Ministry of Higher Education under which the college falls should not sit back and watch the unfolding events at the college from the terraces but to quickly intervene. We therefore expect the ministry to prevail over the matter by providing the much -needed guidance and leadership on the matter. The principal has advanced his reasons for not wanting to move. Mr Mutobo maintains he was not resisting to move but was merely following Government rules that government officers should first serve for five years before they could be transferred. The nation is tired of hearing about squabbles involving lecturers and their principals or indeed vice chancellors in higher learning institutions. Sadly this phenomenon seems to have become common in these institutions in the recent past. Universities and other institutions of higher learning are supposed to be places where students are supposed to obtain more knowledge and skills and not ‘tuff wars’ between lecturers and their chief executive officers. Minister of Higher Education Professor Nkandu Luo has consistently complained about the endless squabbles in these learning institutions between management and lecturers. But sadly, these problems are increasingly becoming common and are happening at the expense of innocent students who are paying to study - either from their parents’ pockets or government loans. Therefore, to avoid further disturbances at the institution, all parties involved should sit and dialogue and find a solution to the perceived problems at the college. In the KCE fiasco, Mr Mutobo’s transfer an oversight if not why resist to move to is new posting as the lecturers claim? As already alluded to, we urge the ministry to give guidance on the matter to before it ends into another impasse. It seems the lecturers too have a lot on their mind and it is only fair and important that the ministry hears them out if problems at the college will be solved once and for all. Operations at the college should not suffer because of a problem which could easily be solved by the Ministry of Higher Education. Question is why haven’t they done that already? Surely they have capacity to do so. It will be costly to let the problem worsen.