admin
One wonders whether the curriculum for school pupils has become so complex that students do not see light at the end of the education tunnel without receiving extra tutoring. Extra tutoring has turned out to be a de facto requirement which parents and pupils highly value of late. As a result seeing a child merely resting during the school holidays has become an awkward and rare sight.
As schools have recently opened for the second term, some pupils are still receiving extra tutoring alongside the normal class lessons conducted during the course of the term. This just proves that extra tutoring has become a necessity, complementing conventional class tutoring.
This may not come as a surprise to many people given the severe shortage of qualified teachers in most local Government schools because of the reluctance by trained teachers to take up permanent jobs in the public sector in protest over the salaries they are being offered. Recent media reports based on a report from the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture said that close to 30 000 teaching vacancies were unfilled out of 127 852 posts. The statistics said the education sector had 98 446 teachers and 12 713 of these were untrained teachers and were temporarily employed by the Government.
The ministry has immensely tried to plug this huge gap by taking up untrained teachers. However, the problem is far from being solved as untrained teachers cannot actually replace qualified ones.
The appropriate skills training acquired and possessed by qualified teachers and their expertise in developing the intellectual consciousness of pupils is crucial for the country’s education sector and the intellectual development of local pupils. Untrained teachers do not have these skills simply because they are not trained, so the impact on delivery in the classroom is always there.
The ministry announced recently that it was engrossed in the work of re-appointing qualified teachers who had left the profession at the height of the economic challenges. Despite the Government’s plea for qualified teachers to come back to the education fold, some have not responded positively. Instead a response has only come from people who would have completed Ordinary and Advanced level education. These turn to local schools to get employment in the education sector in view of the general lack of jobs in the country. Some graduates from tertiary institutions, though trained in skills outside the education sector, have also taken up the opportunity of getting short-term employment in the education sector.
The existence of this staffing gap suggests that thousands of qualified teachers who left the profession and those employed in neighbouring countries have not entertained the plea that came from the Government for them to take up vacant teaching jobs. This situation might result in a prolonged extension in staffing problems faced by the country’s education sector. The long-term impact of this on the country’s education sector could be unfathomable.
Looking at this scenario closely, it is evident that the main cause of this problem has been the protest by teachers over the salaries they are being offered by the Government which critics say do not keep pace with the country’s ever rising cost of living. Another hitch has been that more than 1 000 teachers who rejoined the profession in 2009 reportedly went for nearly a year without payment.
As a result of these unfavourable working conditions surrounding teachers in the country, qualified educators now working in neighbouring countries have not been convinced that returning to work locally will ensure them better working conditions which they moved out to search for in the first place.
General working conditions enjoyed by some qualified teachers in neighbouring countries are favourable to many of them. They earn substantially higher salaries than they would otherwise earn here. Also learning and teaching materials, whose lack demoralise teachers working locally, are always in place in countries like Botswana, South Africa and Namibia. So with the significant salary difference between teachers locally employed and those working outside the country, trained teachers working in neighbouring countries have seen it best to hold on to the jobs that ensure them better life.
To address the problem relating to poor pay, a significant enhancement in teachers’ salaries is an appropriate measure that the Government must take so as to secure the return of qualified teachers. Salaries that are close to those offered to teachers working in the neighbouring countries might effectively convince them to return and occupy the vacant posts.
While some trained teachers have taken up jobs outside the country, others have left the education sector but remained in the country to join the informal sector in order to sustain their families. Yet others have resorted to relying on the funds they make from extra tutoring in order to sustain their families. This reveals the extent of the challenge faced by the Government in trying to resuscitate the education sector.
Online Reporter