Ghost teachers' days are numbered
The education ministry will visit all schools to count the teachers working there in order to eliminate fraudulent salary payments.
The education ministry is working on a strategy to root out all the ghost teachers from its payroll, who cost the ministry vast amounts of money.
Principals and officials who are found to be involved in this fraud will be held accountable and will face serious consequences.
This was announced by the deputy education minister, Ester Nghipondoka, while addressing a gathering of school principals from Omusati Region at Outapi last week.
Nghipondoka said the ministry was paying the salaries of a lot of non-existent teachers. She said when she was a director of education she did not believe that ghost teachers existed, until she became deputy minister in 2015.
“Ghost teachers only exist because there are many teachers on our payroll who have died or are not in the education sector.
“Somebody at head office, working together with school principals, created the system and now even taxi drivers are teachers. When the salary comes these people share the money,” Nghipondoka said.
She said ministry officials will visit all the schools in the country with a copy of the payroll to count the teachers. Where ghost teachers are found, the heads of those schools will be held accountable.
“Be careful, we are coming and we will count all the teachers, one by one, and if we find strange names, school principals will have explain.”
Nghipondoka added that many schools, circuits and regions are complaining about a lack of resources but they fail to identify wastage.
“Every day at our schools we are abusing materials such as ink for copiers, pens and pencils and many other teaching and learning materials and they cost the ministry a lot of money. It is high time that every leader ensures efficient use of the available resources.”
The meeting was attended by school principals and senior officials from the regional directorate of education and the regional council.
The regional director for education, Laban Shapange, said the purpose of the meeting was to reflect on the 2017 academic year and plan ahead.
“We are here to reflect objectively and develop collective strategies for improvement which will drive excellence in our individual capacity, in our individual subject areas, our uniqueness as human beings, the school set up and the context of operation,” he said.
ILENI NANDJATO
Principals and officials who are found to be involved in this fraud will be held accountable and will face serious consequences.
This was announced by the deputy education minister, Ester Nghipondoka, while addressing a gathering of school principals from Omusati Region at Outapi last week.
Nghipondoka said the ministry was paying the salaries of a lot of non-existent teachers. She said when she was a director of education she did not believe that ghost teachers existed, until she became deputy minister in 2015.
“Ghost teachers only exist because there are many teachers on our payroll who have died or are not in the education sector.
“Somebody at head office, working together with school principals, created the system and now even taxi drivers are teachers. When the salary comes these people share the money,” Nghipondoka said.
She said ministry officials will visit all the schools in the country with a copy of the payroll to count the teachers. Where ghost teachers are found, the heads of those schools will be held accountable.
“Be careful, we are coming and we will count all the teachers, one by one, and if we find strange names, school principals will have explain.”
Nghipondoka added that many schools, circuits and regions are complaining about a lack of resources but they fail to identify wastage.
“Every day at our schools we are abusing materials such as ink for copiers, pens and pencils and many other teaching and learning materials and they cost the ministry a lot of money. It is high time that every leader ensures efficient use of the available resources.”
The meeting was attended by school principals and senior officials from the regional directorate of education and the regional council.
The regional director for education, Laban Shapange, said the purpose of the meeting was to reflect on the 2017 academic year and plan ahead.
“We are here to reflect objectively and develop collective strategies for improvement which will drive excellence in our individual capacity, in our individual subject areas, our uniqueness as human beings, the school set up and the context of operation,” he said.
ILENI NANDJATO
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