Mangwe teachers incompetent

Sukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
FORTY percent of qualified teachers in Mangwe District are non-performers who are contributing greatly towards the poor pass rate in the district, an education official said yesterday.

Speaking during a meeting held at the Mangwe Rural District Council offices in Plumtree, Education Inspector, Jester Gumpo said an assessment carried out by her office had shown that qualified teachers’ performance was below standard.

She said it was worrying that the district was being staffed with incompetent qualified teachers.

Gumpo said it was difficult for the district education office to shun such teachers as it had vacancies.

“About 40 percent of the teachers that we have in the district are non-performers. They’re qualified but they’re performing below standard. Sometimes we notice this challenge when we’re inducting them but it would be difficult to dismiss them as we would be desperate for staffing.

“Sometimes the system just pushes incompetent teachers in our direction since we’re a rural district and we’re forced to work with them. When we engage some of the teachers we detect a level of incompetence but we just overlook it,” she said.

Gumpo said 2,127 pupils wrote last year’s Grade 7 examinations but only 882 managed to score between four and 24 units.

She said out of the 882, only three pupils scored four units while the majority scored more than 15 units.

The education inspector said 470 pupils did not pass a single subject while 600 managed to pass all four subjects.

She said while O and A Level results improved, fewer children were sitting for their exams when compared to primary level candidates.

Addressing participants at the meeting on the performance of schools within the district, Gumpo said some qualified teachers were performing badly because of poor working conditions and misplacement of teachers.

She said some teachers were teaching subjects they were not qualified to teach while primary qualified teachers were being deployed to secondary schools.

Gumpo said as a result, teachers were being forced into unfamiliar teaching environments.

She said school heads were failing to keep a close eye on their staff as they also had teaching responsibilities.

“We should be having a system where school heads monitor the performance of teachers in their schools but this isn’t happening. Headmasters in most of our schools also have classes they teach or particular subjects they specialise in.

“The work load of headmasters becomes excessive as they also have to carry out their school administration duties. This is a problem as most classes which are under the care of headmasters perform poorly because their teachers give them divided attention,” said Gumpo.

She said the district had 42 vacant teaching posts which are occupied by untrained teachers.

Gumpo said untrained teachers were being used as a permanent solution of filling up some of the vacant posts.

She said schools in the district were over enrolling pupils yet they were understaffed as some classes had more than 60 pupils.

Gumpo said the frequent movement of teachers out of the district was making it difficult to complete the district’s staffing.

Mangwe Rural District Council Chief Executive Officer, Nketha Mangoye Dlamini said the assessment had shown that the district’s education performance was very poor.

“Our district is poor in terms of education because we continue recording a poor pass rate. The number of pupils who are pursuing their studies up to A Level is pathetic.

“As the education ladder goes up from primary level upwards, our enrolment drops drastically. As a result we’re failing to churn out candidates for tertiary institutions,” he said.

Dlamini said a number of secondary schools within the district were failing to enrol A Level pupils.

He said the district has established schools like Phakamani High, Plumtree High, Embakwe and Empandeni Mission which offer A Level but the bulk of pupils learning at these schools were coming from outside the district.

Plumtree Hospital District Medical Officer, Dr Langalokusa Sibanda said there was a need for the recruitment process to be thorough in order to eliminate incompetent teachers.