Lecturer strike threatens return of turmoil

Turmoil threatens to return to Malawi’s higher education sector as the country’s President Joyce Banda has been confronted by a new challenge: the first strike by lecturers since she assumed power in April.

Lecturers are demanding better salaries and working conditions from the new government. But government says it is strapped for cash and has no funds to address the demands.

The lecturers’ salary issue is the first on which Banda has had differences with lecturers, after her efforts to mend relations that took a turn for the worse during the era of former president Bingu wa Mutharika.

Banda, who became president after Mutharika’s sudden death four months ago, has worked hard to restore lecturers’ trust. Academics were largely at odds with her predecessor’s human rights record, which led to an eight-month lecturer protest last year.

By contrast, the new president has sought to build an open society.

But the strike action at Mzuzu University and Malawi Polytechnic, as well as a 21-day ultimatum to embark on industrial action by University of Malawi lecturers, is threatening to plunge the sector back into turmoil after the government indicated that some of the demands were unreasonable.

Lecturers at the University of Malawi are demanding a 113% pay rise, saying this is justified as it takes into account the recent devaluation of the local currency by 59%.

Banda has been under pressure from donors to devalue the Malawian kwacha – one of the demands that saw donors at loggerheads with Mutharika after he declined to comply. But the move is now having unintended consequences for the new president.

In an email response to University World News the Chancellor College Academic Staff Union confirmed that it had issued a notice to the government.

“There is the issue of inflation and devaluation that has brought us where we are,” said the brief response.

But despite the conflict between academics and the new government, Banda has not adopted the same line as her predecessor.

While Mutharika also dismissed academic freedom demands by the dons and defended police questioning of lecturers, the new president recently presided over an academic freedom indaba to reassure lecturers.

She has also instituted inquiries and commissions to establish the facts in the deaths of leading university student figures during the Mutharika era.

The commission set up by Banda into the death of student leader and Mutharika critic Robert Chasowa recently found evidence implicating the former president’s brother, Peter wa Mutharika, a former Malawian education minister during the academic protests days.

Although police had said Chasowa, who was found dead on campus, had committed suicide, many people suspected at the time that he had been assassinated.

And last week, newspapers reported that prosecutors had closed the case in which six police officers were accused of killing Edison Msika, a natural resources college student who passed away in January this year while in custody. Msika’s death had also angered many in Malawi.

The reports said the officers had implicated one another in statements read out in court and tendered as evidence. Following the death of Msika, Inspector Gertrude Munkhondia, Constable George Kamphe, Constable Lucious Mpakeni, Constable Bertha Chavula and Constable Joel Kapunda were arrested and charged with murder less than two weeks after Banda succeeded Mutharika.