Residents of Chirundu District have raised concern over the growing trend by some teachers in government schools in the area that are allegedly using pupils to work in their maize fields.
Teachers in the various schools have been reported to be allegedly paying school headmasters to assign pupils to work in their fields.
This has been revealed to ZANIS in Lusaka today in a telephone interview by Patriotic Front (PF) member Lovemore Kanyama.
Mr Kanyama appealed to the Ministry of Education to tour the District and ensure that individuals that are responsible of the action are brought to book.
He also added that the pupils were now absenting themselves from classes as they feared to be used as cheap labour in the farm lands.
Mr.Kanyama further stated that he was saddened by the development as the trend has the potential to tarnish the image of the ruling PF government.
Thats good. They are gaining skills which they can actually use for survival.
‘No melon, no lemon’ spelt backwards is ‘No melon, no lemon.’
Some of those teachers in rural Zambia are still primitive and do not envisage the outside world to know what they are doing. Teachers in the past never used to have fields for they were being moved from place to place on transfer and they had no say over such matters. These days a teacher can be at one school for years and years and that is why they have maize fields. This practice is considered exploitative by many organizations and legislations across the world prohibit child labour.
If it’s production unit time and the only school field is occupied or sorted then they can go help in the teachers field it’s the same lesson they learn agricultural methods.. Kanyama adire to reporting criteria…
1995-1998 we used to do that in Chipata, Chinunda Primary School
Yes, even going to collect firewood for the teacher. We used to do that way back.