Bivan Saluseki
11 June 2004
Lusaka — HIV/AIDS is robbing the teaching profession of its cream, Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT) general secretary Roy Mwaba has said.
Mwaba yesterday said 800 teachers were dying annually from HIV/AIDS and poverty related ailments such as depression.
"The issue of HIV/AIDS in regard to the teaching profession cannot be over emphasised as the pandemic is robbing the profession of its cream, teachers who are below the age of 35 years in most cases," he said.
Mwaba said the teachers were young men and women with proper academic and professional qualifications who were the reservoir of future education administrators.
"This number (800) times the years government has failed to employ teachers equals the massive failures of Grades 12 the country has ever witnessed before," he said.
Mwaba said the unilateral imposition of a wage freeze which occurred under the Chiluba regime and now under President Mwanawasa was not a recipe to correct the bad economic scenario surrounding government workers especially teachers.
He said government should not propose some imaginary control measures to curb the exodus when the onus and answer was in their bare hands.
However, Mwaba commended government for developing a bursary scheme to help out the disadvantaged children in society.
"This is the way it ought to be and we hope the scheme is not a political gimmick but something that shall be sustained," he said.
He welcomed Vice-President Nevers Mumba for realising the impact caused by public service workers and nurses.
"We have always warned government that one day government will work up to a rude shock to find that there will be no civil servants and teachers or nurses to manage institutions," said Mwaba.
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