Management forced us to dispute Post article - Ndola Trust workers
Management forced us to dispute Post article - Ndola Trust workersBy Kabanda Chulu in Kitwe
Tue 13 Apr. 2010, 03:50 CAT
WORKERS at Ndola Trust School yesterday revealed that management forced them to sign a statement to dispute the issues raised in an article published in The Post about poor conditions of service and mismanagement of the institution.
The workers also rejected a 10 per cent annual increment which management went ahead to implement and asked the board to disclose the owners of the school following the seizure by the defunct Task Force on Corruption.
However, last Thursday, school principal Stephen Mukanda, vice principal Joseph Akye and school bursar Douglas Mukuma held a meeting without involving another vice principal Faustina Ngosa, to discuss the issues raised by the article published by The Post.
“Thereafter, they called for a staff meeting and told us that we should dispute the story in The Post Newspapers and Mukanda directed that since The Post newspapers is just interested in negative things, all members of staff should append their signatures to a statement that will be taken to be published as an advertisement in order to express disappointment and also to disassociate the workers from the story,” the source said.
“Given a choice, people would not have signed because Mukanda threatened to institute dismissals and warned that ‘if you don’t sign then you are the one who leaked information to the newspaper’ and during this meeting even general workers were invited to participate so that it can be seen that workers were happy with the way the school is being run.”
The sources said despite the decision to dispute the contents of the article, management failed to address their grievances.
“This board has overstayed and by his own admission, board chairman Dr Mushaukwa Mukunyandela indicated that they had been in office since 1999 and since then standards have gone down. Imagine under ZCCM, only 25 pupils were allowed in each class but we now have close to 40 pupils and it is difficult to teach and all these pupils pay between K2.4 million and K2.8 million but the highest paid employee gets K2 million, meaning that one child is able to pay a teacher,” the source said.
“And through the teachers’ representative Moses Musonda, all members of staff except the Bursar Douglas Mukuma, signed to petition management about poor conditions of service and the rejection the 10 per cent annual increment but management went ahead to implement it and they said that whoever is not happy should leave.
We have a situation where teachers are resigning to go and work in government schools which is not supposed to be the case and ever since Mukanda was employed as principal, only retirees are being engaged since they are willing to accept anything.”
According to the statement, which the workers were forced to sign, the reason for reacting to the article was not to respond to the contents but rather to express disappointment.
“The contents of the article are unfounded and should be treated as cheap manoeuvres by enemies of a well-run institution. It is against this background that the entire teaching staff categorically disassociates itself from the article and its contents,” read the statement.
And in another press release, Dr Mukunyandela claimed that since 1999, the school had been run by a board of governors assisted by the PTA without any remuneration but for the passion of contributing to the community.
“When we took over running of the school, it was just up to grade seven level, but we have transformed it into a secondary school and ownership of the school is not a secret since it is run by a trust on behalf of the community and some trustees include representatives of the provincial minister and the provincial education office,” stated Dr Mukunyandela.
“We have implemented various developmental projects through numerous fund raising ventures and we shall not be discouraged by unscrupulous few individuals in the school.”
Labels: CORRUPTION, NDOLA TRUST SCHOOL, THE POST
posted by MrK @ 2:53 PM
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