BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-Deputy Education Minister Monica Chang’anamuno says despite several challenges the country is facing, the government still remains committed to improve teachers’ domestic needs, the pupil-qualified teacher ratio, and pupil-classroom ratio.
Chang’anamuno was speaking on Tuesday October 25, 2022 at Mount Soche Hotel in Blantyre where she was presiding over the commemoration of the 2022 World Teaches’ Day.
For instance, the Deputy Minister disclosed that currently, Ministry of Education has developed a new policy which is demanding that there should be a Minimum Essential Education package of which a fully function school must comply to.
Chang’anamuno said following the policy, the government has started constructing 207 semidetached teachers houses in the hard to reach rural schools which are expected to accommodate 414 teachers across the country.
The Deputy Minister said in addition to that, the government is constructing 10,900 additional classrooms for primary, in addition to the 383 already built to decongest large classes and create a conducive learning environment in schools
On the teacher’s job recruitment, Chang’anamuno said in January this year, Ministry of Education recruited, 2,200 primary school teachers followed by 2599 Secondary school teacher in March.
She promised that these recruitment exercises will continue as resources become available
“We have also recruited 4,125 Auxiliary Teachers drawn from Primary Teacher Education (IPTE) 13 and part of IPTE 14 and they have been placed in various public schools across the thirty-four (34) education districts in the country,” she said.
She added; “I can gladly confirm the introduction of a blended – face-to-face and ODeL- model to train an initial 1,400 secondary school Head teachers who are consequently going to acquire a University Certificate in School Management and Institutional Leadership.
“This is aimed at significantly improving the management of secondary schools for effective results therefrom.
“My Ministry also has procured and distributed nearly one million three hundred thousand (1,292,976) mathematics and science textbooks in Government Secondary Schools.
“This I am pleased to say, has for the first time brought the pupil textbook ratio to 1:1 in all government secondary schools.
“This will make teaching easier, and more effective, which will in turn significantly improve learning outcomes.
The Deputy Minister concluded that President Lazarus Chakwera has been very pro-active at national, regional and global level, giving an example that during the recent 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, at the Transforming Education Summit, he made commitments to maintain large allocation of the national budget to education and that also passionately lobbied with development partners to ease financing restrictions that prohibit our country to adequately recruit into the civil service including the teachers.
The event which was held under the theme, “Transformation of Education begins wit Teachers” saw 185 teachers being awarded for their exceptional work in contributing towards the development of education in the country.
