10 000 teachers needed in schools

Sunday Mail
24 January 2010
From Bulawayo Bureau

At least 10 000 teachers are needed nationwide as it emerged that there is a critical shortage of the educators in schools amid revelations that the re-engagement system that the Government embarked on to bring back to the fold tutors who had left is tedious and frustrating.

It has also emerged that the country is in dire need of teachers who teach Science subjects, Mathematics and English, something that is threatening to cripple the pride of the country’s education sector.

In an interview on Friday, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Senator David Coltart confirmed the shortage of teachers in most of the country’s schools.
He said the country needed an estimated 10 000 teachers adding, that it was disheartening to note that some rural schools were left with very few or no teachers at all.
“We have had an establishment of some140 000 teachers in the country, but currently we have an estimated 80 000, a number that is, of course, far too few if we are to have the required number of teachers for every class
.
“There are reports coming to the ministry from various provinces in the country that some rural schools hardly have any teachers to attend to the students and such a situation in our schools is not healthy .

“An estimated 10 000 teachers is therefore required to get the country’s education system working again, but we are not so much concerned about the quantity but the quality.

“As it stands right now, there is an acute shortage of teachers for Science subjects, Mathematics and English which are the most important subjects, something that has seen us shifting the temporal teaching policy to ensure that we maintain the quality of education with the available human resources,” said Sen Coltart.

He confirmed that there were problems dogging the re-engagement system and said his ministry was doing everything in its power to ensure that all the bottlenecks that the education sector had been experiencing were dealt with.

Re-engaged

Minister Coltart further highlighted that out of an estimated 20 000 teachers who left the profession in the last two years due to the pressing economic environment, about 2 400 teachers applied to come back into service and were re-engaged last year, but have not been receiving their salaries for the better part of last year, something the unions have been making noise about.

He however, reiterated that he had since met the union leaders and satisfactorily resolved all the anomalies that were deterring and frustrating those who wanted to be considered for reengagement.

Sen Coltart highlighted that while the issue of getting the education sector on its feet boarders on remuneration, there was a general consensus among the teachers that their demands were fueled by the rates that the parastatals were charging.

He said it was encouraging that the educators understood that the country’s financial position was still low to meet their expectations and were querying the wisdom of parastatals demanding exorbitant amounts of money that were far above the regional standards from the consumers of their services while they were aware that the Government was not paying such kind of money.

The Minister would not, however, be drawn into revealing the finer details of the meeting he had with the Minister of Finance Mr Tendai Biti during the course of the week, preferring to say they have a constructive discussion on the issue of remuneration with the hope of getting back the education system of the country to its glorious past.

There are reports that teachers from rural areas are leaving their stations in droves to look for places in urban areas where they are paid better incentives while some are going to private schools.

The policy of incentives was introduced to try and cushion the teachers against the meagre earnings they were getting.

%d bloggers like this: