Graduate teachers fail to get employment since 2019

Primary and Secondary Education Minister Torerai Moyo has revealed that teachers who graduated as far back as 2019 are still awaiting employment, saying Zimbabwe has qualified teachers available but limited capacity to absorb them into the public service.

The Minister made the remarks in Parliament on Wednesday while responding to questions from legislators over reports of teacher shortages in schools across the country.

He disputed claims that Zimbabwe is experiencing a shortage of teachers, arguing instead that many qualified graduates remain unemployed.

"We do not have a shortage of teachers in Zimbabwe. We have other teachers who graduated from 2019 to 2022 who are not yet employed," Moyo said.

He explained that Government recruitment follows the order in which teachers graduate to ensure fairness in the employment process.

"We are only saying they cannot be employed; it is only those who graduated this year and last year who cannot be recruited yet. We have those people who graduated in 2020; that is the rule that we have to employ those people who graduated earlier. If we take those people who graduated in 2025, it will be corruption, so it will not come out well for those who graduated earlier," he said.

Moyo said the recruitment of additional teachers in recent years had significantly improved teacher-to-pupil ratios across the country, including in previously underserved rural areas.

"As I am speaking, the teacher-pupil ratio of late was very high, but we thank His Excellency the President for allowing us to recruit a lot of teachers. Even where I come from in Gokwe North, where people used to say we could have five teachers per school, we have recruited a lot of teachers in those places, meaning that the teacher-pupil ratio is now quite admirable," he said.

The Minister compared Zimbabwe's education system with that of neighbouring Malawi, saying local class sizes were considerably smaller.

"Last week I was in Malawi; I discovered that one teacher had 200 children and all the children were being taught while sitting on the ground, but here in Zimbabwe we have a ratio of 1:35 and 1:40. We have to thank our Government for the good job being done by His Excellency," he said.

Responding to concerns from another legislator about shortages of Mathematics and Science teachers, Moyo said Government has adopted a different recruitment approach for teachers in critical Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.

"The Government policy is that where there are shortages, for example, in science subjects like Physics, Chemistry and Biology, when teachers graduate, even in February this year, we hire such teachers for STEM subjects, which augurs well with the Education 5.0 model," he said.

"For Physics, Chemistry and other science teachers, they are employed as soon as they graduate."

The Minister's remarks indicate that while thousands of qualified teachers remain on the employment waiting list, Government continues to prioritise the recruitment of graduates in specialised STEM subjects to address shortages in those disciplines.