Teacher crisis in Gwanda

Mollet Ndebele, Sunday News Reporter

SCHOOLS in Gwanda town are facing a shortage of 42 primary teachers, a situation that is affecting learners in the Matabeleland South provincial capital.

In an interview on Friday, Matabeleland South acting provincial education director Mr Lifias Masukume said the schools that are affected are Jahunda Primary, St Christopher’s, Mount Cazalet, Senondo and Gwanda Adventist Primary.

“We receive extra pupils, some from South Africa and some from Gwanda rural areas therefore as we keep enrolling, we realised that the number of pupils does not tally with that of the teachers available. The ration of pupils to teachers is 40 per teacher.

“We have realised that in some rural areas there are many teachers but less pupils therefore we are planning to move some of those teachers to town schools to balance the situation. However, to rectify this problem we have sent an application to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to consider Gwanda in the next recruitment of teachers,” said Mr Masukume.

Schools in Matabeleland North are also facing the same problem with revelations that qualified teachers were shunning most areas due to the poor infrastructure at most schools especially in Binga District. The most affected primary schools included Majankila Primary School in Bubi District which was said to be operating with only three teachers. 

The other schools that were also worst affected by the teacher crisis were Thuthukani Primary also in Bubi as well as Chibuya Primary in Binga where the teachers used makeshift classrooms and lived in dilapidated grass-thatched huts. At some of the schools, learning materials like textbooks are inadequate, while proper classroom blocks are non-existent.