TEACHERS APPEAL FOR SALARY RISE

A teachers’ union has urged Government to consider salary increments for teachers as well as other civil servants.

Professional Teachers Union of Zambia (PROTUZ) North- western province coordinator, Gilly Kakunta, appealed to Government to increase salaries for teachers in the 2021 budget as the cost of living was high.

He was speaking in an interview in Solwezi yesterday.

Mr Kakunta noted that if salaries and other working conditions were revised, the teaching fraternity would be a happy workforce.

“And we pray that there will be no wage freeze, otherwise, as teachers we are surviving by the grace of God,” he said.

He stated that in the 2020 calendar year, the public service service had been negatively affected economically due to the high cost of living.

Meanwhile, Mr Kakunta said that PROTUZ has welcomed the education allocation for the 2021 national budget.

Mr Kakunta said the over K13 billion allocated to the education sector which translated into 11.5 percent had cheered his union as well as other stakeholders in the sector. He said this was because the allocation has a component of early childhood education, loans for tertiary as well as infrastructure development among other components.

“We have seen also in the same allocation the component of feeding program, which is a plus for us as teachers,” he said.

Mr Kakunta said the feeding programme if well managed would motivate pupils, who would be attending classes without challenges.