The status of trained but unemployed teachers in Zambia | WestMac Media

Dear Sir, 

RE: THE STATUS OF TRAINED BUT UNEMPLOYED TEACHERS 

Refer to above mentioned subject, Sir (Minister of General Education) its with a heavy and bleeding heart that I write to you this letter on behalf of other jobless trained teachers. It is the desire of every parent sir that after their children graduate from college or university they find decent employment. However, sir, this is not the reality on the ground today. 

According to the Teaching Council of Zambia (TCZ) records Zambia has about 50,000 trained but unemployed teachers, on the other hand Government recruits less that 5000 teachers annually e.g this year you are likely to recruit about 2000. What happens to the rest, as the number keeps swelling because some are graduating as others are enrolling? 

Sir, due to many years of not entering a classroom the only time we speak English is when we meet our former classmates or when the pastor at church asks you to read a verse from the Bible. Don't you think this affects the teachers performance in class once deployed? Personally, I lose hope when I look at these figures. 

Sir, if the “pasture” in the private sector was as green as in the government, I would not have written to you this letter. Nevertheless, sir I'm not a pessimist, I believe together we can come up with solutions to the challenges facing our education sector. 

Sir, allow me to admit that I'm not a person with vast experience in this field, however it doesn't bar me from offering suggestions; therefore, I've outlined some proposals I would wish you and team would ponder on: 

(1) Halt teacher training for a given period until all of them are absorbed into the system: 

I know this sounds crazy and ridiculous, but sir it can help us. Why should teacher training continue when graduates end up on the street after graduating? This may raise the question of what about the staff in those teacher training colleges? Well sir, those people can be assigned other tasks within or outside the ministry as they await the next intake of teacher training. 

(2) Serious regulation of teacher training institutions, especially privately owned: 

Sir, we appreciate greatly the work being done by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), Teaching Council of Zambia (TCZ) together with your ministry. However, sir the challenge remains huge out there. Why should we continue having having more private teacher colleges? I think we have enough and why should a two roomed house that has failed to attract a tenant be allowed to run as a university or college? Why should we have colleges of education every 100 meters and every floor of these buildings in the CBD? 

(3) Limit the number of student teachers colleges enroll annually: 

Its very disheartening to find colleges having enrollments each and every quarter of the year and one enrollment has not less than 1000 students even when they don't have adequate infrastructure, let alone qualified staff to handle those students. 

(4) Teacher training should match the demand on the “market”: 

Sir, since the time of Jesus the cry of Zambia's education sector has been the shortage of Science and Mathematics teachers, today the cry is even louder as we now also need more ICT and Business Teachers. It could also help if you can order that only the training of teachers in the above fields be done, for a specific period in order to meet the demand. 

(5) The number of teachers to be trained be equal or a little higher than the existing vacancies: 

Sir! it is pointless to train 70,000 teachers when you only have 1000 vacancies. Where do the rest go? 

(6) Centralize teacher recruitment: 

I'm privy to the fact the you are in the process of decentralization with regards to teacher recruitment. I'm of a different view sir, its the ministry headquarters which knows well where there are vacancies in what field, how many they are. I strongly feel the ministry headquarters can properly, fairly and equally distribute teachers across the country. Decentralization has/will just increase corruption, nepotism and imbalanced recruitment. Haven't you wondered how the teachers with fake qualifications were deployed? 

Yours faithfully, 

Warren Munalula

munalulaspartan@gmail.com