Teaching profession bill in place

Teaching profession bill in place

Nchelenge, May 22, ZANIS  —–Education Deputy Minister David Mabumba has disclosed that government passed a teaching profession bill in March this year which will lead to the creation of the Teaching Council.

Mr Mabumba said this when addressed teachers from Mutono Junior Secondary School and Nchelenge Secondary School in Nchelenge district.

He said the Teaching Council will be working together with the Teaching Service Commission and will come up with the code of ethics which will regularise the teaching service as a profession.

He said the council will also be responsible for issuing teaching practice certificates for all the teachers in the country.

The minister said the measure was important because teaching was an important profession and needed to have a body which should be certifying teachers by being issued with the practicing certificates.

He added that the Teaching Council will also be responsible for ensuring that the teaching training institutions in the country were certified after meeting the required standards for the proper training of the teacher so that the sector was not infiltrated by imposters from questionable training institutions.

He said the council will also ensure that all teachers were accredited and once a practicing certificate was withdrawn, the victim would not be allowed to teach anywhere because even private schools will have to be affiliated to the council to promote and maintain standards for the teaching service.

He further disclosed that government will also pass a bill for the creation of Higher Education Authority to regularise what universities were teaching so that the courses they were offering were in conformity with standard course content.

Mr Mabumba said all the universities operating in Zambia will have to register with the authority so that from time to time the authority could be checking on the standards of teaching even in private universities in Zambia.

He said the measure will help in checking and reducing academic anomalies among graduates because all the universities running programmes in Zambia whether public or private will have to be certified by the authority.

He said a graduate from Cavendish, Lusangu or UNZA in a particular field should demonstrate knowledge in that particular programme which should be about 80 per cent similar because of the standard course content.

He said the two bills will help in ensuring that teachers and universities were doing the right thing in their practice.