Katete District Commissioner, Raphael Phiri, has appealed to teachers to take a proactive role in being whistleblowers against any shoddy works by contractors.

Mr Phiri said the Ministry of Education is the major beneficiary of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), hence it is a generally expected standard that once they observe any shoddy works, they should report the contractors.

He indicated that most structures, especially school structures, had poor workmanship and yet teachers just kept silent about the matter when they were the immediate and direct users.

The DC said this during this year’s World Teachers’ Day commemoration held under the theme: ‘Valuing teacher voices: towards a new social contract for education’.

“I am appealing to you to help us protect resources. K 36 million in each constituency is a colossal amount of money.As beneficiaries of this CDF, you need to be proactive and be concerned so that where there is a bad job, we all rise. Let us be concerned about the workmanship,”he said.

Earlier, Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zambia (ARTUZ) Eastern Province Chairperson, Stella Phiri, appreciated the government for the teacher recruitment that has seen the reduction of teacher pupil ratio and the free education.

“We are grateful to the government for the free education as more than two million children have gone back to public school. I would like to commend the government on the progress it has made so far in various areas of the education sector and would like to encourage it to continue addressing the challenges that the sector faces,” she said.

Ms Phiri however highlighted the need to introduce rural hardship allowances for teachers in Milanzi Constituency of Katete District as the Constituency was still rural.