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Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Midlands Correspondent
THE Government has facilitated the enrolment of more than 2 500 teachers for the teacher capacity development programme to enable the tutors to effectively teach the 16 languages that have been main-streamed into the education system under the new curriculum.
In an interview, Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Minister Professor Paul Mavhima said the ministry had embarked on a massive teacher training and capacity development programme that would see sign language being treated the same as other 15 official languages in the Constitution.
Prof Mavhima said the Government was treating sign language as any other language to be taught in schools and teachers were being capacitated with sign language skills which he said would be taught on the basis of need.
“On the issue of sign language you have to understand that the constitution has placed it at par with other languages in the country. It is one of the 16 languages that are recognised in the Constitution. We as the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education are seized with the matter and making sure that all these subjects are represented in our schools. There is a training programme and we have identified teachers for capacity building that is going on. You realise that among the 2 500 teachers that we are now incapacitating in various areas there is also a component that deals with 16 languages.
We are identifying where we have gaps, be it sign language or any other language that had not been previously main-streamed and capacitate teachers so that we can effectively teach learners in those languages,” he said.
Prof Mavhima said the ministry was now working on logistics and waiting for the final approval from the Finance Ministry to start recruiting 2 300 teachers.
“The ministry is working on the logistics now, it may be a matter of a few weeks before we start recruiting. We are also waiting for the final go-ahead from the Ministry of Finance (and Economic Development),” he said.
Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Cde Prisca Mupfumira recently said the Civil Service Commission will soon recruit about 2 300 teachers as Government moves to address the shortage of teachers. Minister Mupfumira said the Primary and Secondary Education Ministry required more than 7 000 teachers urgently and these would be recruited in batches starting with the 2 300.
“We understand that the Primary and Secondary Education Ministry requires about 7 000 teachers. However, we are going to recruit them in batches and we are going to start by recruiting 2 300. The other vacancies will be filled as time progresses depending on the availability of resources,” she said.
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