News / Education
Massive teacher shortage hits Zimbabwe education
19 Jul 2011 at 11:09hrs | Views
Principal director for finance, administration and human resources in the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Mrs Sibonginkosi Mutasa, last Friday reported that out of the 111 000 teaching posts in the country, 96 000 were filled by qualified teachers.
This mean that over 15 000 teaching posts are vacant in Government schools nationwide due to reluctance by school leavers to join the profession.
Unqualified teachers are also shunning the offers. This has negatively affected the country's pass rates, sources have revealed.
The situation is particularly bad in the rural areas where people with less than four Ordinary Level passes are being allowed to take up secondary school classes.
Parents in rural areas are unable to pay attractive incentives unlike their counterparts in urban areas.
At some rural schools, a teacher is forced to take up more than four subjects to cover up for the shortage.
Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Deputy Minister Lazarus Dokora attributed the shortage to brain drain.
He said teacher training colleges, which were producing 5 000 teachers annually, were also failing to meet their target as the number of pupils starting school was increasing.
Most teachers in ZImbabwe have been driven away by low remuneration and frustrating bureaucracy.
Secretary for Higher and Tertiary Education Dr Washington Mbizvo confirmed that 15 primary and secondary teacher training colleges in the country were producing 5 000 teachers every year.
This is not enough to cater for the over 5 500 primary and 1 600 secondary schools in the country whose enrolment continues to increase every term as the population grows.
This mean that over 15 000 teaching posts are vacant in Government schools nationwide due to reluctance by school leavers to join the profession.
Unqualified teachers are also shunning the offers. This has negatively affected the country's pass rates, sources have revealed.
The situation is particularly bad in the rural areas where people with less than four Ordinary Level passes are being allowed to take up secondary school classes.
Parents in rural areas are unable to pay attractive incentives unlike their counterparts in urban areas.
At some rural schools, a teacher is forced to take up more than four subjects to cover up for the shortage.
Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Deputy Minister Lazarus Dokora attributed the shortage to brain drain.
He said teacher training colleges, which were producing 5 000 teachers annually, were also failing to meet their target as the number of pupils starting school was increasing.
Most teachers in ZImbabwe have been driven away by low remuneration and frustrating bureaucracy.
Secretary for Higher and Tertiary Education Dr Washington Mbizvo confirmed that 15 primary and secondary teacher training colleges in the country were producing 5 000 teachers every year.
This is not enough to cater for the over 5 500 primary and 1 600 secondary schools in the country whose enrolment continues to increase every term as the population grows.
Source - Byo24News
