Underfire Education minister, Lazarus Dokora.
THE financially hamstrung ZANU-PF government is yet to build 2 000 schools required to meet the learning needs of its school-going citizens. Critics have said the shortage of schools in urban, rural and resettlement areas has been the main reason behind the sharp decline in the pupils pass rate over the last few years.
This has also contributed to the sprouting up of unregistered schools that have sprouted in every urban suburb staffed by unqualified teachers, thereby compromising the quality of education. Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Minister, Paul Mavima, shocked the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, when he admitted that the teacher to pupil ratio in schools currently stands at an incredible average of 70:1 against the recommended 30:1.
Mavima was responding to questions posed by legislators in the National Assembly when he stood in for his absent boss, Lazarus Dokora, who has come under fire for introducing controversial policies that have sparked huge debate in the education sector. Mavima drew murmurs from Members of Parliament when he said schools are currently overcrowded owing to the ballooning infrastructure backlog topping 2056 schools. He said the government was failing to cope with the demand for new schools because of financial constraints.
He was responding to a question from MP Jane Nicola Watson (proportional representation) who wanted to know what government was doing to reduce congestion in the country’s schools. “Can the Honourable Deputy Minister of Education tell us what is the ministry’s policy with regards to teacher to pupil ratio which ranges between 50:1 and 70:1 while the optimal ratio is 30:1? What is the Ministry doing about that issue,” she asked
Mavima said in his response: “The issue of teacher to pupil ratio is related to another big issue that the Ministry is concerned about, which is the provision of schools. As a country, we are short of more than 2 000 schools and because of that the schools that we currently have are congested. “We have situations where for example, at Belvedere Primary school, the Grade Three classes have 53 pupils per one teacher. So, without addressing the issue of the shortage of schools, we will have to live with this phenomenon where there are high teacher to pupil ratios.
“Having said that, as a ministry concerned, we are doing everything that we can in order to ensure that we continue to build schools, but also we are in the process of recruiting more teachers so that we can reduce that ratio. The recruitment is done together with the Civil Service Commission, which is the employer.”
Buhera West legislator Oliver Mandipaka, also asked the Minister to clarify government’s position on the controversy surrounding teachers’ incentives that were scrapped when Dokora came into office. “In our interaction with pupils and students from various schools in the country, more so in Harare, there is an indication that teachers who are opposed to the government directive of banning incentives and extra lessons are not doing their best in those schools. They are dragging their feet and perhaps we can call it some kind of sit-in that is quite indirect, not giving of their best to the students. What is government policy in terms of ensuring that the performance in those various schools is quite high and the teachers do their part?” he asked.
Mavima said the incentives should have never been put in place adding that the ministry was rolling out a staff development programme which would see teachers enhance their qualifications at various State universities at subsidised fees through tailor-made programmes as a way of motivating them as well as improving the quality of education.
“We have heard a lot about the speculation that the banning of incentives has led to a lack of motivation on the part of teachers. I say so because the jury is still out on that. What the ministry is doing is to ensure that there are other ways in which teachers are motivated to build a commitment in the profession so that they can provide quality education to our pupils. One of the ways in which we have done so is to provide capacity development programmes where the government is going to pay for teacher capacity development. These are some of the measures that we have undertaken but I do not want this House to believe that due to the banning of incentives which was a flawed policy to begin with, there has been deterioration in our schools as far as teacher motivation is concerned,” he said.
The bankrupt Zimbabwean government has managed to establish 105 schools in the past two decades and at this rate, there is sufficient reason to believe that it is still a long way before this backlog of outstanding schools could be cleared. Of the schools constructed, the majority were established by churches, individual groups and, particularly in the remote areas, by parents tired of sending their children on long distances to school, often on barefoot and cutting across several villages. The situation has not been helped by the fact that definitive school examinations are sat for at the onset of the rain season, often characterised by violent thunderstorms and flooded rivers.
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