• Although the decision is legally binding, it is unfair.
• There has been no mass teacher recruitment in the country since 2012.
• Government should consider recruiting such teachers on contract basis.

As stipulated in the 2022 national budget, Government through Ministry of Education is in the process of recruiting 30,000 teachers, with about 100,000 trained teachers having applied for the jobs.

The Teaching Service Commission is expected to start announcing names of successful applicants on 1st June, 2022 as it has already finished scrutinising applications in the teacher recruitment process at district level.

However, government has disqualified applicants above 45 years from the on-going teacher recruitment exercise and the move has received mixed reactions from stakeholders across the country.

It is in this vain that Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) is calling on Ministry of Education to rescind its decision to disqualify teachers who are above 45 years from the ongoing teacher recruitment exercise.
Organization Executive Director George Hamusunga told Money FM News that government should instead consider recruiting such teachers on contract basis unlike rendering them ineligible for recruitment.
Mr. Hamusunga stated that although the decision is legally binding, it is unfair because there has been no mass teacher recruitment in the country since 2012.
He noted that the number of teachers being recruited annually has been reducing over the years, with the last recruitment exercise having employed only about 2, 000 teachers based on their year of completion.
“This means that there are some teachers that were disqualified in previous years for having completed their tertiary education late and the same teachers are now being disqualified for being above the recruitment age. Moreover, the government has been encouraging adult literacy and education programmes in the country,” Mr. Hamusunga stated.
Mr. Hamusunga further said the discrimination against teachers who are above 45 years has the potential to discourage those who are currently enrolled in adult literacy classes.
“Some of the teachers who have been disqualified are individuals that once belonged to the adult literacy classes,” he said.
On the other hand, Golden Party of Zambia (GPZ) President Jackson Silavwe said older teachers are still Zambians who also experience poverty and have families to feed as well as financial needs.

“I find this policy by the Government extremely discriminatory. It is disheartening to have such a restriction in a country where Government is the employer of first choice and 5 million plus Zambians of working age are unemployed is disturbing.”

“Comparing the age group of some of the Presidential appointees, 45 years is relatively youthful. The New Dawn Administration must be consistent in the way they do things,” he said.

Mr. Silavwe also called on Government to reconsider its position and give a quota of employment to the old teachers.

Teaching Service Commission (TSC) Chairperson Daphne Chimuka is quoted saying the Commission is expected to start announcing names of successful candidates on 1st June, 2022 but that applicants aged above 45 and foreign nationals have been disqualified from the recruitment program.