The Sunday Mail
Debra Matabvu – Sunday Mail Reporter
Government is recruiting over 13 000 teachers to reduce the high tutor-student ratio at public schools.
The educators are working on a temporary basis and comprise university and college graduates with non-teaching qualifications. They are being trained to become professionals in line with the Teacher Capacity Development Programme introduced last month.
The teacher-student ratio is between 1:50 and 1:70 in Government schools, against an optimum of 1:30.
Rural schools are the worst affected.
In an interview, Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Minister Professor Paul Mavhima said training had been modelled along the lines of available teaching degree and diploma programmes.
He pointed out, however, that the initiative would only cut and not “necessarily eradicate” the high ratio problem.
Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe programmes and communications officer Mr Enoch Paradzayi said there was “more teaching than learning in most Government schools” as educators were failing to attend to the individual needs of their huge student populations.
Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association secretary-general Mr John Mlilo added: “The move is commendable. However, Government must first recruit qualified teachers but lack employment. This is less costly.
“It makes more sense to fill vacancies first and then train and recruit these temporary teachers later. In addition, teachers’ salaries and working conditions should be improved. There is also need to improve and build more schools and learning infrastructure. Otherwise, we will keep training teachers for other countries.”
Zimbabwe lost many qualified teachers to the Diaspora during the economic turmoil of the last decade.
Government hired school-leavers to teach at vastly understaffed learning institutions and later engaged non-teaching degree and diploma holders.
The capacity development programme aims to upgrade the skills of this latter group and qualified teachers. About 132 000 teachers are currently employed at public schools.
