The Situation

A typical community school has hundreds of students, a few teachers, and never enough resources like desks, chalk, and books. The government cannot financially support community schools. NGOs and faith-based organisation provide support through training teachers, donating teaching materials, running feeding programmes, and improving school infrastructure. But, one thing not addressed is the issue of teacher salaries. My organisation emphasises community ownership and we aim to train and support communities to source their own funds to pay their teachers. A few schools, through the efforts of parent school committees have income generating activities like tuck shops, piggeries, and chicken runs. In the end, there is never enough money to go around.

We have sent some teachers to college, but when the return to their community school, it is up to the community to support their teachers. Or in theory, government should hire them. Training teachers is not sustainable, if we cannot retain them. Some teachers get small monetary, housing, and food allowances, but most do not. The World Food Programme announced a shortage of food in Zambia and a number of feeding programmes at schools have stopped. As a result, a number of teachers has stopped showing up at school. I guess one thing keeping teachers around are feeding programmes, which at least allows the teacher and probably some of his/her family to eat.

How to pay teachers? Part of me is saying, yes we need to throw money at the situation to temporarily “fix” the problem and at least keep teachers to the end of the term. My organisation facilitates workshops to build the capacity of teachers and parent school committees. If basic needs are not being met, how can we expect people to be interested in building their capacity. In reality, people eagerly seek workshops because the transportation allowances given out are a source of income. We temporarily ride the enthusiasm and pride of new volunteer teachers, but that can only last so long. It is uncertain whether community school teachers, even trained ones will ever be put on the government payroll. Is there a long-term solution to enable communities to pay their teachers? Argh.