Government has revealed that it is considering reversing the retirement age of scientists in the country in order to make it responsive to the needs of the scientific world.
Chief Science and Technology Officer in the ministry of Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Dorothy Mulenga says the current retirement age of 55 years old is of grave concern to government.
Dr Mulenga explained in an interview that government is spending colossal sums of money to send scientists for specialist training who are made to retire early without fully utilizing their knowledge.
She added that Zambia and Africa as a whole is faced with a critical shortage of scientists adding that retiring scientists at 55 years is worsening the situation because most of them retire with knowledge which they can use to educate the younger generation.
Dr Mulenga observed that the western countries do not usually have challenges of human resource because most of their scientists retire above the age of 70 years.
She said government is however currently tapping the knowledge of retired scientists by giving them contractual jobs after retirement.
TALK IN MONEY TERMS AS WELL, INCREASE THEIR SALARY AS A WAY OF MOTIVATING THEM.
But they should not be holding key position such as directotiate. Their role should be completely contribution to science and research. Otherwise the idear is good.
Life begins at 55 for scientists that is when you want to wean them from their active service. However, the govt should train more young scintists to take over from the old ones as they retire instead of creating unnecessary gap. Some medical doctors are still practicing at the age of 90 in some developed countries. Of course, they are few.
At 55 the brain is still very active and by them a scientics would have gained a lot of knowledge, experience and contacts in the science world. Most developed countries have a retired ages of 60-65 but contract the over 60-65.What a waste of knowledge!!!!
Put the retirement age of scientists at 65 years of age. Then put the Presidential age limt at 80 yrs old.
As for the shortage of scientists, we are very much around. only that we are far from home since it appears there is very little or nothing at all to do in Zambia. Let the government pump in money for research activities. Let them start sponsoring MSc, PhD and post-doc science students at UNZA. We will then be ready to do research at home and become a knowledge generation partner to the rest of the world.
Sad fact, UNZA is currently ranked numbers 57 and 7,016 in Africa and in the world respectively on : http : / / www . webometrics . info / top100_continent . asp ? cont=africa
Zambian political leaders have no brains. How did you come up with this retirement age? The whole idea is so wasteful. How can you retire someone at such bouyant age? If you consider the brain drain to neighbouring and overseas countries the rate at which highly educated and skilled Zambians leave the country does not allow retirement at 55 whether it be a scientist or otherwise. Not only that-HIV/aidsalso depletes skilled (and nonskilled) labour.
What the grz must do is to up the retirement age to maybe between 60 and 65 years for all productive workers-politicians aren’t productive workers. Politicians can go up to any age-even 80, who cares. atfter that the grz must (mind you am…
…using the word MUST coz this is critical), heavily invest in Research, Science and Technology and establish state-of-the-art Science and Technology Research centres in all provincial HQs. Scientists and Technologists are very important people. The grz must quickly review salaries and other working conditions for these people to compete internationally. From there grz must start attracting (calling) back those who left the country to come and man these research institutions. The grz must also build (more) specialized universities in fields such as agriculture, science and technology, mining, business, etc in provincial HQs. These unis. must be research centres themselves or attached to…
…those research centres. INDUSTRY-grz must formulate policies which instruct industries to be attached to universities and research centres in order for those institutions (unis and research institutions) to keep abreast with state-of-the-art, (or up-to-date) technology as industries always and quickly acquire such tecnology. Under this same policy, industry must be instructed to sponsor bright school leavers to unis. in courses directly to do with such industries/companies. Community responsibility, isn’t it? Should that be the case, sponsored students should work for those companies for a minimum no. of years b4 they decide to leave any sponsoring company. This is how zed can quickly…
…it 2030 middle class population goal.
Another important issue companies investing in Zambia must be instructed to transfer technology to indegenous Zambians so that when they leave, they don’t leave with technology. To enforce this law, grz must closely monitor all industries. Companies found to be flouting the law must quickly be shown the exit. There4 when you think you have trained enough and you dont need most of them (this is impossible, though), thats when you can fix retirement age at your wasteful 55.
The idea very gud but look after them as wellas they shoould not be hindering the progress of young one .let them be consultant.
There is no individual benefit for retiring above 55 in Zambia. Simple example(from UNZA) shows that those on contract get contractual benefits every 2-3 years which are sufficient for a viable and well planned investment. The best is to retire at 55 get and your terminal benefits, then go back on contracts of 3 years each. Simple arithmetic shows that your retirement benefit are increased by doing this.
Scientists? In Zambia? But guys, muma yesako with the jokes.
This is the time you are realizing that retiring at 55 years is a waste of human power but we have always been advising the govt. Similarly, the idea of UNZA employing on contracts which are not met at the end of contracts is unfair. Why not scrap this system and have permanent establishment? Otherwise pay the contractual obligations immediately the contract ends. Instead of holding to someone because you are unable to pay him/her dues then has to keep on working even if he wanted to leave. Can such a person perform well in his job? No. The govt has to be serious in extending the retirement age for scientists.
Do will have any!!
They all end up at parliament motel.
Do will have any!!
They all end up at parliament motel doing the fukafuswa.
Why has it taken so long to see what is obviously common sense? This is what we say “kuzelezeka!” Anyway, now that you have finally realised only one mistake of the many you have continued to make, when are you going to know that a “revenue collector” should not earn more that a scientist? That the different between developed and developing countries is in utilization of science and technology? Think of this, a farmer toils the whole year to produce and when he sells his produce, he uses the money to buy goods such as plastics which takes a second to produce! please let our poor farmers use their money for difficult to produce things! Pay scientist and motivate them to produce, we can do it!
No scientist or medical doctor retires. They get better as they age due to their scientific and technological experience. Who ever thought of retiring such people at 55 was an imbecile. I can only think of Chiluba since his brain was full of STD!
the significance of a retirement age should be…. “it is at the age you receive pensions benefits”.reaching this age should not result in termination of ones employment.in many European countries age discrimination laws even forbid putting your date of birth on your cv!!!! you only stop work when you are no longer physically and/or mentally able.if you have had the luxury of high income during your working life you could plan and CHOOSE to stop work on the same day you reach 55 !!!
Iwe yaku Botswana, do you think Scientist drop from Mars. Zambia has so much potential and capability as any other nation on earth today to produce outstanding scientists. Uli chikopo sana.
#4, #6 and 17 make sense. The increase in retirement age should only be restricted to skilled personel. The Constitution Review is sitting. It is better to include this amendment.
#12 yaku botswana is foolish!His surprise shows the depth of his ignorance. Go to school iwe Chikopo!! If you want, go and rot in your ka Botswana!!
It is not only scientists but all skilled workers.retirement time is a night mare for most of us Zambians.Most Zambians get peanuts after PAYE at retirement. See yesterday times of zambia,front picture shows ex ZNS commandant looking very sad during his farewell party.Only the incoming commandant looked happy as usual. It is really sad.
The retireemnt age should increased to atleast 65years like in Botswana and many other countries.
In general we Zambians portray a good image of being educated but we lack the drive to implement the knowledge gained. Let’s not talk for the sake of talking, we must be proactive than wait to be told what to do. Just take an inventory of the people we have in leadership or those occupying high ranking positions in government. The majority of them have an education that is beyond Grade Twelve. One wonders whether they question their minds before coming up with a policy or whether they engage their pea-brains in exhaustive consultations with experts retired or not.
Retire a scientist or skilled worker when their productive performance begins to decline. I don’t think this is difficult to implement since in most cases people opt to retire when they notice that the job they are doing is tiring them or keeping them away from other things they would like to accomplish before they leave mother earth. As regards our educated Ministers, we must keep a tab on their tasked assignments as per parliament budget fund allocation. An independent body of concerned Zambians must monitor performance of each Ministry and bring to the attention of the citizenry the successes and failures.
A Ministry with poor performance must have it’s Minister demoted or sent to another Ministry where his/her skills could be better used. The other thing we should do as citizens is to start forwarding our grievances to the Ministers in writing as opposed to just blogging amongst ourselves. This approach is far much better than street protests or picketing. The good part of this approach is that it gives the Minister an opportunity to table the concern in parliament at an optune moment. This way we can tell which Minister is paying attention to the grievances of the citizenry or electorate at large.
No.24 is right. These comments should be going directly to Cabinet
so that it is engaged before it comes up with policies affecting education in Zambia. Then you can hold their Party accountable for non performance and show zambians why they should be booted out. Can comeone out there facilitate this? Any takers in Cabinet?
retirement age of 55 years old depends on the working environment some scientist exposed to harmful chemicals radiations and so on how to you balance when you increase the retirement age.
NpUEMY comment3 ,
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