Government to recruit 3 080 trainee teachers
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) plans to recruit 3 080 trainee teachers in its drive to improve the teacher to pupil ratio currently standing at one to 73.
Under the National Education Sector Plan, Malawi desires to reduce the teacher to pupil ratio to one to 60, a target MoEST spokesperson Manfred Ndovi said in an interview is becoming a tall order. Previously, the ratio stood at one to 90, one of the highest in the region.
He said MoEST will continue to recruit teachers on Initial Primary Teacher Training despite not deploying the group that graduated last year because it is on a mission to train 33 000 teachers by 2017.
Said Ndovi: “We have targets at the Ministry of Education and our target is to recruit about 33 000 teachers by 2017. So, if we stop training them, we will not reach the target. That is why we are still training them [teachers] despite not deploying some.”
He added that the teachers will be deployed as soon as MoEST finalises some logistics.
Ndovi said they have targeted to recruit 3 080 trainee teachers unlike other years when they were recruiting 10 500 trainees.
He said the number of the teachers to be recruited in training has been reduced due to the circumstances that they are in. He said there are not enough funds to cater for the training of the teachers.
Over the years, 10 000 teachers who graduated from the last Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and IPTE are yet to be deployed.
