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Teachers` crash course plan harmful, govt told
2007-10-05 09:25:17
By Felister Peter
The Tanzania Teachers Union has called upon the Government to re-evaluate the programme under which Form Six leavers can graduate into licensed secondary school teachers after going through a crash course lasting one month.
According to the union, it is almost impossible for such a short course not to result in the production of half-cooked teachers whose deployment would adversely affect the standard of education in the country.
The programme is aimed at easing the shortage of secondary school teachers but the union sees it as highly likely to do education more harm than good.
TTU executive secretary Ezekiah Oluoch told reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday that there was simply no way a person could be taught for a month or two and then hope to become a teacher in the real sense of the word.
`To qualify as a teacher, one has to be taught the subjects one is supposed to teach in school alongside teaching methodology,` he said, adding that what the Education and Vocational Training ministry was doing was to introduce the trainees teaching methodology and dispatch them to schools soon after that.
`It is hard to understand how and why the government allows students with single E and other low level principal pass in the Form Six national examinations to join teachers` colleges and graduate a mere one month later.
Can such a teacher really teach students effectively despite his or her own poor performance in class,` he asked rhetorically.
Oluoch said it was much more advisable for the Government to invest more efforts in persuading Form Six leavers with at least Divisions Two and Three passes to opt for the crash teaching courses than continue depending on virtual failures.
`In Tanzania the quality of education in primary and secondary schools is poor mainly because of dependence on a faulty education policy.
The national Education and Training Policy of 1995 needs urgent updating,` observed the TTU official.
He attributed the poor results of last year’s national Form Four examinations to problems in the policy but fell short of showing where a direct link lay.
Oluoch recalled that only 36,000 students had First, Second and Third Division passes, while more than 80,000 ended up with the lowly Division Four.
He said most of the failures came from schools in rural areas where there is an acute shortage of qualified teachers.
One of the surest ways of solving the problem, he said, was for the government to form a task force to take a critical look at the education system in the country and make `plausible recommendations for better set-up`.
He added that it was equally important for the government to make sure that teachers have a thorough grasp of the subjects they are supposed to teach before they are introduced to teaching methodology.
Another requirement, according to him, was that teachers get better pay packets and work terms so that they do not get frustrated or be tempted into moonlighting.
Contacted for comment on the issue, Education and Vocational Training deputy minister Ludovick Mwananzila said he was on safari and was not in a position to say anything substantive.
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