Education record management in shambles

He said the accurate number of qualified and unqualified teachers in the country was last established in 2006.
This has seen the ministry being accused of recruiting over 1 000 teachers unproceduraly.
The dearth of up to date records has raised the spectre of ghost workers.
Minister Coltart said the irregularities were affecting internal audits, which in turn would affect the national civil servants audit being done for the second time.
“The situation in the ministry is sad,” he said. “We are not able to give anyone, with certainty, the actual number of teachers we have in Zimbabwe.
“The education management information system database if it is up to date assists us in keeping the records we have in the ministry.
“The touted 110 000 teachers and 8 000 schools is what we think we have in the ministry, but is not the actual number.
“What is only known is that rural areas have a lower number in terms of qualified teachers and urban areas have more.”
The ministry, Minister Coltart said, was relying on the manual system at its provincial and head offices for the figures.
He said the movement of information based on the manual system was slow and not reliable.
“How do you plan and budget when you have such incongruity? It is problematic when it comes to the allocation of teachers and even if Government wants to close or build a school,” said Minister Coltart.
“The provinces are not linked to the head office and in this day and age this is not pleasing.”
Minister Coltart attributed the irregularities to the under funding of the education sector by the Government.
He said the ministry was working with experts from various organisations to address the situation.
He said the staff, mainly those at the head office, needed retraining to keep up with trends in the profession.
“We have to find necessary computers and software and I am pleased to announce that there are organisations working with us to bring everything on track,” he said.
“The programme to correct everything also includes training of the staff at the head office.”
Minister Coltart appealed to Finance Minister Tendai Biti to increase funding for the education sector.
The country, according to education officials, has a shortfall of between 12 000 and 13 000 teachers and is on a massive recruitment drive of temporary teachers.
Zimbabwe employs an estimated 97 000 teachers against a demand of 110 000.