Expansion of education system results in demand for teachers

Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
THE opening of new schools across the country has increased the demand for teachers amid calls by teachers unions for the Government to invest in education through prioritising recruitment.

Statistics last year indicated that there were over 4,6 million learners in Zimbabwe and nearly 140 000 teachers.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education requires at least 20 000 more teachers to address the critical manpower deficit in the education sector, with science subjects and early childhood development (ECD) classes being the worst affected.

Government revised upwards the number of teachers that are required as a result of the need for social distancing in schools following the outbreak of Covid-19.

This year, the Government recruited 5 000 teachers in addition to 3 816 teachers employed last year. Out of the 3 816 teachers, 835 of them replaced educators who did not report for work after the previous recruitment exercise in 2020.

As part of implementing Vision 2030 anchored on the National Development Strategy 1(NDS1), the Government has approved the construction of 3 000 new schools by 2025.

There are more than 10 000 schools with a total enrolment of 4 659 993. The construction project will be implemented in phases next year starting with 100 and 144 model 21st century Government primary and secondary boarding schools spread across the country.

One primary and one secondary boarding school with adequate state of the art facilities will be constructed in each of the 72 districts.

The Treasury will fund the first 144 schools while public-private or joint venture arrangements will be crafted to assist in the construction of the other 3000 schools.

In an interview yesterday, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Mrs Tumisang Thabela said the country’s education system continues to expand due to demographic changes.

“You will note that the education system is expanding as demographics change. As new settlements emerge, we also get new schools. In 2020, we had 9 600 schools, but when we did our census last year, the number had risen to 10 167 and the figure continues to increase,” she said.

“It is a moving target and therefore we can never give a fixed figure to say we need such a particular number of teachers. In terms of the number of teachers we require as a country, our estimate when we last did this exercise had indicated that we are short of about 20 000 teachers.”

Mrs Thabela said the number of teachers required depends on the enrolments.

Last year in December, the Ministry of Education of Rwanda and the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare of Zimbabwe signed a memorandum on exchange of educational personnel and expertise.

This was followed by the issue of a Recruitment Manual on May 4 this year to guide the process of recruitment and employment of Zimbabwean teachers to work in Rwanda.

Following an agreed-on plan of activities, Zimbabwe shared with Rwanda a list of 473 recommended candidates for Rwanda to register them in the e-recruitment system.

Mrs Thabela said the Treasury this year gave her ministry greenlight to employ 5 000.

“In terms of the recruitment of teachers, this year we were given room to recruit 5 000 and so far, we have recruited about 4 000. Only last week, we had the final recruitment list and we are urging teachers to visit the district offices where they had actually applied for their recruitment,” she said.

“We encourage those teachers to quickly take up their posts so that in the event that there are any gaps, we can then fill them up.”

Mrs Thabela said her Ministry had requested 10 000 teachers this year but was only given funding for 5 000 teachers.

“The gap is still there but, the Government, also depending on the envelope that it has, continues to give us funding. Once we are given Treasury concurrence to employ, we recruit them,” she said.

Zimbabwe Teachers Union (Zimta) chief executive officer Dr Sifiso Ndlovu said the recruitment of teachers is a welcome move which should be done annually and in large numbers.

He however, urged the Government to invest more in education in line with NDS1 through recruiting more teachers to address the issues of reducing the teacher-pupil ratio.

“We have said that we want more teachers in schools as the number is insufficient due to early retirements, deaths and resignations. The recruitment is a welcome move, but we will not rejoice much as it has little impact,” he said.

Dr Ndlovu said each of the country’s 16 teacher training colleges churns out an average of 300 teachers per year.

“In line with the new curriculum, the Government should reduce the teacher-pupil ratio by employing more teachers. We have quite a number of qualified teachers loafing around,” he said.

“Since 2016, we have not been getting enough teachers as the Government was just replacing those who died, retired or resigned. In our view, we are saying Government should allocate more resources towards education.” – @mashnets