THE National Action for Quality Education in Zambia says most teachers today are resorting to borrowing as a means of survival.
Executive director Aaron Chansa has appealed to the government to fulfill the promise of debt swaps for teachers and all civil servants.
During the launch of a national campaign against heavy indebtedness among Zambian teachers on Thursday, Chansa said a survey had revealed that more than 90 per cent public service teachers were heavily indebted.
“Their pay slips are chocked. They owe banks, financial institutions and individual money lenders a lot of money. The above has negatively affected teachers and has direct effects on the delivery of lessons in classes,” he said. “It has further adversely impacted households, creating untold disharmonies which has undoubtedly lowered productivity.”
Chansa said because of owing too much, teachers cannot make economic ends meet but become unable to concentrate on teaching, always looking for ways away from the classroom to cover for their insignificant net pays.
“This sad state of affairs must be of great concern to the banks, the Teaching Service Commission, the Ministry of General Education, the Public Service Management Division, parents and Civil Society Organisations. We must all get worried because teachers are the engines that drive the education system. Whatever affects this engine vandalises the quality of education in the country. And no country can develop with poor quality of education,” he said. “The reasons for this disturbing indebtedness among teachers in Zambia are various. While we shall prescribe immediate and medium term solutions, the lasting and long term solution to this social and economic cancer, in our highly considered view, is empowering teachers with financial literacy skills. Currently, financial literacy among teachers is terribly low.”
Chansa said financial literacy was the cognitive ability to understand and effectively use various financial skills including debt management, saving, planning and investment.
He said it was a powerful foundation of one’s relationship with money.
Chansa said financial literacy enables people to clearly understand what was needed to achieve a lifestyle that was financially and socially balanced, sustainable, ethical and productive.
He said it was a life skill that one must grasp for good financial well-being.
“Lack of financial literacy affects one’s ability to provide for themselves, family, and community and impairs attitudes towards money and investments. To mitigate against this ugly state of affairs among our most important human resource, the teachers, NAQEZ is today announcing a national campaign against indebtedness among teachers,” he said. “From today, teachers should look out for our electronic and physical financial literacy literature and seminars in districts, provincial centres and at national level. Once we equip teachers with financial literacy skills, we strongly believe that they will borrow economically and make better and beneficial financial decisions. They will effectively manage money and debt, will greatly be equipped to reach their financial goals, will reduce expenses through superior planning and regulation and will have less financial stress and anxiety.”
Chansa said NAQEZ cannot fold its arms and allow teachers get stuck into financial ruin.
“We refuse to see them hanged at the altar of unbearable and toxic debt. For some of our teachers, because of debt, committing suicide becomes an option. Having laid bare, the danger that financial debt has brought to our hard working teachers, we now ask ‘why are banks, lending institutions, government and teacher unions not shaken about this sad reality?’” he said. “We ask again, ‘why is it that banks charge very high interest rates without rendering financial literacy education to these struggling servants?’ We continue to ask why trade unions are not interested in equipping their members with financial management skills, and why the Teaching Council of Zambia cannot include financial management data into the CPD of teachers.”
Chansa said the matter was a time bomb and asked all stakeholders not to bury their heads in the proverbial sand.
“Time to act is now. As we embark on this mammoth exercise of empowering our teachers with important financial literacy and debt management skills, we again invite all banks and lending institutions to join us,” he said. “These institutions have a corporate moral responsibility to provide financial literacy to their clients. We also call upon all teacher unions to take up this noble and crucial duty to prioritise and give financial and entrepreneurial literacies among their languishing members.”
Chansa said as NAQEZ continues to press for upgrading of salary scales for deserving teachers as well as confirmations in substantive positions, “we appeal to the government to fulfill the promise of debt swaps for teachers and all civil servants”.
“If well done, this initiative has the capacity to rescue thousands of our debt trapped and impoverished public service workers. All banks, lending organisations, the Teaching Council of Zambia and all teacher unions are hereby called upon to significantly invest in financial literacy education of teachers in Zambia. The time to empower our teachers is now and not tomorrow,” said Chansa.