Education minister Michael Kaingu has pleaded with striking lecturers at the Copperbelt University (CBU) to call off their class boycott and resume lessons, albeit calling their work stoppage illegal.
Kaingu said in an interview that the academic programme for the CBU had been disturbed adding that the prolonged striked action would affect students’ morale in their education.
Kaingu said the Government was aware of the challenges that CBU was experiencing for many years and that these challenges, which he called ‘enormous’ could not be addressed in a confrontational fashion, but rather, through dialogue.
“We can only resolve your challenges through dialogue and not confrontation. The lecturers at CBU are very confrontational but in this way, it is difficult to achieve any meaningful dialogue,” he said.
The minister said his office was making strides to find a break through in the CBU impasse and one of the activities he undertook to address the matter was to meet the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) last week where the trade unionists acknowledged that the CBU strike by lectures was illegal.
“During the meeting with representatives from ZCTU, it was acknowledged that the lecturers at CBU were on an illegal strike and they must go back to work while their grievances and other demands were being addressed,” he said.
Kaingu said the government was not going to succumb to the lecturers’ demand to sack four top officials at the CBU because this would set a very bad precedence in the history of the institution.
“The government is not going to tolerate any illegality in the country but I want to urge the the lecturers to do the correct thing. Our colleagues, the CBU academic staff are demanding that we fire the four of their management staff. We cannot do that because it will be a bad precedence for the country. We cannot just fire people just because people are protesting. The best we can do is to dialogue when there is a problem,” he said.
Kaingu said that the government would only relieve CBU managers once there was proven incompetence on the part of concerned individuals.
He said lecturers in institutions of higher learning in Zambia must stop the habit of resorting to strike action each time they wanted the authorities to address their demand.
Kaingu said the government did not find pleasure in closing any institution of higher learning because the practice was retrogressive, but he warned that the government would not hesitate to close any institution that was not stable in its operations.
Recently, the CBU was characterized by a major impasse between lecturers and the university management after the lecturers demanded for better pay and the resignation of the institution’s vice chancellor.
The impasse instigated students protests, which in turn prompted the government to prematurely close the university.
Although the university has been closed, tension remains at the CBU because lecturers still want better pay and the sacking of four top management officials before they could resume classes.
The government has been making maneuvers to resolve the impasse but the lecturers have stuck to their demands.
The post Kaingu Calls for Dialogue with Striking Lecturers at CBU appeared first on Zambia Reports.