The Teaching Council of Zambia (TCZ) says it will not extend the grace period for teachers who have not yet acquired practising licenses from the council.
Speaking in an interview with Money FM News, Council Spokesperson Ngoza Malonga stated that the teachers have however been given a flexible payment mode, as they will be paying in installments.
Ms. Malonga said a teacher who is supposed to pay K900 in 3 years, will now be able to pay the same amount in 14 months.
She added that Public Service Teachers will be required to pay K64 every month through their payroll, while those in the Private sector will have to get into an understanding with their respective schools that will be paying the license fees on their behalf.
“We are not extending the grace period but we have given them a flexible payment mode. For example if a teacher is supposed to pay K900 for 3 years, they will pay that amount of money for 14 months for now, but from the time that we started talking about it they were paying in 36 months.”
“So in reality they will be paying K64 per month. So we are not extending but we have allowed them to pay in installments via payroll for the Public Service Teachers, then for teachers in private we have also allowed them to do so, but it’s the school that has to get into an understanding with the teachers so in actual sense, the schools have to pay on behalf of the teachers,” Ms. Malonga said.
Ms. Malonga explained that the Council expects the Private School proprietors to pay on behalf of teachers in a period of six months.
“The understanding is not between the individual teachers but the Teaching council and the schools. So we expect that the proprietors of these schools should pay on behalf of teachers in a period of six months,” she added.
Ms. Malonga’s comment comes in the wake of calls by Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) Executive Director George Hamusunga for the Teaching Council of Zambia (TCZ) to consider extending the grace period for getting licences so that more teachers can be given an opportunity to comply with the legal requirement following the August 31st deadline.