Teachers urged to be morally upright

Teachers should be morally upright and have the zeal to drive the country's economic blueprint Zim-Asset forward, to help promote socio-economic development, a Government official said yesterday.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony of 602 teachers at Nyadire Teachers' College yesterday, Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Professor Jonathan Moyo, said teachers have the mandate to contribute towards the Zim-Asset poverty eradication and social services cluster.

"The teachers that we groom must be relevant to Zimbabwe, and must understand that education is the source of solutions to the country's challenges. No education, no solution," Prof Moyo said.

"Those who think that solutions come from politicians are naive and are yet to discover education. Instead of teaching children how to complain about problems they face, a morally upright teacher should teach them how to solve those problems and such a teacher produces problem solvers."

Minister Moyo hailed Nyadire Teachers College's proposal to transform into a degree-awarding institution.

"I appreciate the argument that the time has come for our teachers' colleges to produce degreed teachers and for the lecturers at these colleges to have a Masters degree, if not a doctorate degree, relevant to their vocation," he said.

"In this connection, the Ministry has its ears wide open to the college's proposal to transform into some kind of a degree-awarding institution and offer a Bachelor of Education in Primary Education, as the college's main qualification."

Prof Moyo also urged teachers to be competent.

"It is often said that those who know do and those who don't know, teach. The essence of this prosaic view is that teachers tend to rely on textbooks to teach things they do not know anything about," he said.

"The modern teacher who is a key driver for sustainable socio-economic development must have intimate knowledge of what they teach and must be a competent doer with life skills."

Prof Moyo lauded the institution for its contribution to the country's highly regarded primary education, which has seen the country's literacy rate consistently ranging between 92 and 96 percent.

"The time has come to consolidate the country's literacy achievement by ensuring that our teachers' colleges produce graduates who are numerate without exception," he said.

"For this to happen, every tertiary and higher education student must have minimum mathematical skills, which are the necessary bedrock of the new STEM culture being spearheaded by the ministry."

Prof Moyo said: "It is pleasing that some 1 144 students have gone through the ICT module this year and that 88 students are specialising in mathematics as their main subject.

"This is important in line with the ministry's policy thrust to ensure that no student will be eligible to enrol in tertiary and higher education institutions unless they obtained at least a 'C' or better in Mathematics at O- Level."

University of Zimbabwe Vice Chancellor Professor Levi Nyagura, hailed the on-going partnership between UZ and Nyadire, saying he had confidence in the quality of teachers produced by the institution.

"These graduates are not ordinary teachers, but a new breed of enterprising and highly-trained teachers demanded by the times because we have monitored the progress of the graduands throughout the three years of training and approved all their syllabi and examinations," he said.

"This new breed will not shy away from Technology, Mathematics and Science and they are ready to take their place in schools and communities as STEM ambassadors," said Prof Moyo.