Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Government must balance the distribution of teachers in the country

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A Mansa based educationist has called on Government to evenly redistribute teachers among urban, peri-urban and rural areas if the pupil to teacher ratio is to effectively be attained.

And Government has been commended for introducing revised curriculum and local language teaching phonetics meant to effectively impart reading skills and knowledge among young learners.

Sun Riverside School Proprietor and Head Chishimba Mutale in an interview yesterday said authorities must balance the distribution of teachers with respect to demand for their services in various areas.

The biggest challenge for public schools has been the crowding of teachers in peri-urban and urban areas against the service to rural areas which equally deserve and need teachers, Mr. Mutale noted.

“Government has over the years heavily invested in the education sector through infrastructural growth in the form of learning facilities it is building, recruitment of teachers and provision of learning materials,” he said.

He said the uneven distribution in the education sector equally extends to learning facilities constructed but added with the non-availability of learners from the respective area.

“We have witnessed a similar situation in some areas or schools where some schools have 110 or 70 pupils in one class and on the other end of it all, only 12 or so pupils would be in class,” he said.

Mr Mutale has also hailed government for its commitment to providing education for all through syllabus revision, school fees reductions and creating an enabling environment for private educators to complement its efforts in the sector.

He said the quest to provide quality education is a cause that needs the support of all and not left for the government to undertake alone.

“A good example is a local language phonetic syllabus introduction which is now making pupils effectively know how to read even before they learn English and this will ease their understanding of complexity in various topics they are taught as they academically progress,” he said.

Mr. Mutale observed that there is a need for the education system to now strengthen the ability to derive practical solutions or innovations from the locally educated citizenry in fields of engineering, science and entrepreneurship excellence as a lot of learners are educated through it.

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