Untrained teachers run Matabeleland schools

Zimbabwean

By Paul Ndlovu

23 August 2011

PTUZ Secretary General, Raymond Majongwe, said a recent survey showed that rural schools in the area faced a critical shortage of skilled teachers, and if urgent measures were not put in place education standards in the region would be comparable to nothing.

“When we sent our teams to the two provinces of Matabeleland,they were confronted with a catastrophic situation. In districts such as Lupane and Binga temporary teachers were literally running the schools.

“In some places it was discovered that the only qualified person was the school head and the rest were temporary teachers,” said Majongwe.

He attributed the lack of trained teachers to “anti-people” policies by the government, which he accused of exposing children to uncompetitive learning environments.

Lack of housing and water made most teachers unwilling to work in the remote areas. “In many instances they are forced to walk over 10 kilometres to fetch water. This is not an attractive scenario for a qualified professional teacher,” he said.

Provincial Education Director for Matabeleland North, Boitatelo Mguni, confirmed that the province was facing a serious deficit of trained teachers.

“Although I can not give specific figures at the moment it is true that the province is hard hit by lack of qualified teachers particularly in Mathematics and Science subjects. The most affected area being Binga where most primary schools are controlled by temporary teachers,” she said.

Education Minister David Coltart said government had introduced a special programme through the state’s universities to recruit more teachers especially for science and maths.

According to the PTUZ survey, very few teachers from Matabeleland were being recruited by the Zimbabwe School Examination Council for marking in the final year exams.

“Teachers need to teach as well as mark so that they can be in a position to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their pupils.

But our report indicated that few teachers from Matabeleland are recruited for marking,” said Majongwe.