Pupils in Malawi capital protest following teachers' strike

Hundreds of primary school pupils took to the streets of the Malawi capital Lilongwe Wednesday following the on-going teachers' nationwide industrial action over salary arrears and allowances.

The teachers' nationwide sit-in commenced on Monday after the Teachers' Union of Malawi (TUM) and Malawi government failed to touch base on the teachers' concerns.

Since Monday, the teachers are reporting for duties in their respective schools but they are just sitting, playing various games among themselves until knocking-off time.

The teachers are demanding salary arrears for over 6 months, allowances for invigilating the 2016 Malawi School Certificate of Education Exams, and promotion.

On Wednesday, pupils mostly from primary schools in Lilongwe took to the streets in hundreds, marching and singing against the delay in addressing their teachers' concerns which they said was affecting the pupils'schooling.

"We are very disappointed with the strike because we are the direct losers in all this," one pupil told journalists in Lilongwe.

"We are not learning and we do not know how long this is going to take. We are appealing to government to sort our teachers' concerns immediately so that we continue learning."

The protest was generally peaceful except for a few incidents where the children blocked the traffic in some roads in the city and threw debris to passing cars, forcing the Malawi Police Service to intervene to disperse the protesters with teargas.

The pupils marched to the Lilongwe District Education Manager's Office, where they presented a petition urging the office to address their concerns.

There has been blame game lately, with the Finance Ministry saying Treasury dispersed the teachers' invigilation allowances and salary arrears long before to the country's examining body, Malawi National Examination Board (MANEB) and Ministry of Education, respectively.

MANEB and Education Ministry said they had diverted the funds to other "equally pertinent activities" and that they would sort the teachers out at the soonest possible time.

But TUM Secretary General Denis Kalekeni over the weekend said the national sit-in the teachers had embarked on would not stop until government sorted out all the teachers' grievances "in full and not in part".

Primary and secondary schools in Malawi officially opened on Sept. 5 for the 2016/2017 academic year running up to July 2017. Enditem