Govt lifts ban on temporary teachers

Cde Dokora described temporary teachers as crucial to the education sector, as there are not enough trained teachers to meet requirements.
Last month, the Deputy Public Service Minister Andrew Langa admitted the country still faced a shortage of teachers and needs to recruit more to fill vacant posts, especially in rural schools.
Last year, the Government had frozen recruitment of temporary teachers, and also barred qualified teachers from going on leave. There, however, were unavoidable leaves of absence such as maternity and sick leave that created vacancies.

Vacancies created mid-year through retirement, resignation and death were also mostly left open until the beginning of this year when new graduates from teacher training colleges were deployed.
The proliferation of private schools that offer better remuneration has also resulted in continued loss of qualified teachers from the public sector.
There was also confusion over the intended dismissal of over 1 000 teachers who had left the public service then returned under an amnesty extended by the State. The Government has since regularised their employment following the intervention of teachers’ unions.

Many teachers left the civil service alongside other professionals at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic downturn leaving schools severely understaffed. Some of them returned following the introduction of the multiple currency regime.

The Public Service Ministry is alleged to have threatened the returning teachers with dismissal on the grounds that their re-engagement was not procedural. Zimbabwe employs about 97 000 teachers against a demand of 111 000.

Meanwhile, the Government will this year introduce a retraining programme for all the teachers in the country so that they keep up with prevailing trends in the profession.
The retraining is part of proposed education sector reforms that will be carried out under phase two of the Education Transition Fund.

Phase one of the programme targeted reducing the pupil: textbook ratio from 15:1 at most rural schools, to 1:1 for all subjects in all schools.
Under phase two, a similar programme will be carried out in secondary schools, while teachers will undergo training under the Government funded refresher courses. The fund will come from ETF and Treasury, while school based trainers will train their peers.