via Zim short of 1 500 Science, Maths teachers | The Herald July 18, 2014 by Bronfenbrenner Torubanda
There is a critical shortage of trained Mathematics and Science teachers in the country, with more than 1 500 vacant posts. This was revealed by Primary and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora in an address to the Matabeleland Zanu-PF leadership during a recent meeting in Bulawayo to clarify the country’s education policy.
“Over 1 500 Science and Mathematics teachers are needed for these subjects. The posts are vacant and we want to fill up these posts,” he said.
“I hope in the next three years more teachers are going to be trained so that we can address this problem.”
Minister Dokora said the shortage of Science and Mathematics teachers undermined Government’s desire to have more Zimbabweans studying these subjects which have been identified as strategic for the country’s development.
“Lack of Science teachers has led to the production of students with no science skills. This is discouraging the uptake of science and mathematical subjects,” he said.
The shortage of Mathematics and Science teachers is prevalent in all the country’s 10 provinces.
Matabeleland and Midlands provinces are the hardest hit, with vacancy rates of more than 55 percent.
Shortages of science laboratories and other learning materials in rural and urban schools have also worsened the problem.
The flight of skilled Mathematics and Science teachers to neighbouring countries in search of better pay and working conditions has compounded the problem.
Minister Dokora explained the deployment of non-Ndebele-speaking teachers in Matabeleland saying it was done to address the critical shortage of teachers in the region.
“The deployment of Ndebele teachers needs a systematic approach. My ministry will use available human resources to provide formal education to pupils in any part of the country.
“The issue of non-Ndebele teachers requires the engagement of other partners,” Minister Dokora said.
Political leaders in Matabeleland had expressed concern that the deployment of non-Ndebele-speaking teachers was making the teaching of children difficult as it was not easy to explain issues which required use of the pupils’ mother tongue.
COMMENTS
In 2000 I attended the same kind of educational leadership meeting at Gokwe Centre, Midlands in which then Education Minister told teachers that his ministry was not a security ministry where teachers would come for security after being butchered by the then much revered war veterans and youth brigades. Butchered we were and we went hiding from one hovel to the other as if we were uncouth rogues of the worst order. Early this year news went abuzz that in some region in Mashonaland war veterans sought provincial education permission to supervise teachers…..my foot. Address those impediments and teachers will come out of their hibernation. I do not know of any private high school in Maputo that has no Maths and Science teacher on board. Yes in next three years you hope to have sufficient teachers to mann the classes why hasnt that happened in the last three years for you to able to supply qualified personnel by now. By those three purported years the number will have doubled to 3 000….count your months
What do they expect when the standards are so low across the board. It’s not just the salaries. It’s the lack of funding for books, decent classrooms, lack of clean water, electricity, & as Joseph Matongo pointed out, the harassment by overzealous ZANU PF supporters.
Zimbabwe today does not need Maths and Science teachers as all the youth should be happy to go back to the land. great fortunes will be made by those youths that go out to the farms and till the fields.after all is this not what the grand plan for zimbabwe that robert g mugabe had in mind when he confiscated the farms from the white people !
what do you expect when take land and hand it over to a clueless moron who knows nothing about farming & who doesnt have the required machinery to cater for commercial farming…african stupidity at its best
I think the government has to come up with a plan of training temporary teachers who are in possession of degrees because there are plenty of people and graduates at home with Maths and Science qualifications.
I am one such person,I have been doing temporal teaching in Harare for 3 years now and suggest the government can come up with small training program for people like me during the holiday and give permanent contracts
They are all out either in SA, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and other regional countries looking for greener pastures. We all know that.