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THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has recruited over 200 district school inspectors (DSIs) across the country to enhance the monitoring and supervision of teachers in line with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).
Under the NDS1, Government is paying particular attention to broadening access to education by marginalised populations in both rural and urban areas as envisaged by the strategic economic blueprint.
The recruitment of DSIs comes a month after Government hired 3 816 teachers. Last year, Government recruited 5 300 teachers.
In a recent interview on the sidelines of the Secretary’s Bell Merit Award for Maranatha Adventist Primary School in Nketa suburb in Bulawayo, Primary and Secondary Education Permanent Secretary Mrs Tumisang Thabela said the recruitment of DSIs will assist in building capacities in school heads and teachers in their learning areas.
“We have recruited 219 DSIs and they have since been deployed to the districts. In the past, DSIs, especially subject areas’ inspectors, were at provincial level and would be expected to cover the province with one inspector per learning area or subject,” she said.
Mrs Thabela said DSIs will support schools through coaching and supervision and making sure that Government expectations in terms of education quality is maintained.
“What Government has done now is moving to the district office, which is closer to the schools and we therefore created subject specialists or inspectors for the districts. We now have inspectors in charge of sciences, mathematics, English and foreign and indigenous languages, and that inspector then becomes the supervisor for the schools in that particular area of specialisation in that district,” she said.
Mrs Thabela said the ministry has also introduced inspectors in charge of infant education in line with the recommendations of Commission of Inquiry into education and training.
“We have also introduced inspectors in charge of infants education as it is a relatively new module within the ministry.
“There is proven evidence in research that the first five years are the most critical in developing a child cognitively and linguistically. So, in that regard, we didn’t have specialists for infant education.”
Mrs Thabela said since the country’s higher and tertiary learning institutions are only beginning to catch up with the new curriculum by training ECD teachers, Government has, in the meantime, decided to utilise the services of inspectors to help with capacity building for teachers handling infants.
The recruitment of DSIs is critical to ensuring quality education in the country in line with Vision 2030, she added.
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