Stop training teachers - NGO

GOVERNMENT should regulate private colleges on the number and type of teachers they train to avoid the increasing numbers of unemployed trained teachers, the National Action for Quality Education in Zambia (NAQEZ) has said.

NAQEZ executive director Aaron Chansa said some colleges unsuitable for teacher training should be closed because Zambia should not be training teachers who end up nowhere.

He urged the two ministries of Education to stop training teachers in Social Sciences and only train them in subjects where there was a critical shortage.

Mr Chansa urged the Teaching Council of Zambia (TCZ) to critically screen most private colleges.

“What Zambia needs is a reasonable number of quality colleges for quality teachers. We want the number of colleges to train teachers to be systematically and purposely controlled.

“Government should divert Zambia from the current training system to revolutionary skills and vocational training. Attention must go into training in useful skills as opposed to skills in humanities and social sciences,” he said.

Mr Chansa expressed concern over the increased number of unemployed trained teachers in the country.

He described the situation as an impending social and economic disaster.

Mr Chansa said current statistics stood at 50,000 teachers who could not find any employment in government or private sector.

“We greatly fear that if nothing is done urgently, this danger will soon produce social, economic and political turbulences. It is now abundantly clear that the private sector cannot employ anymore and that Government has no capacity to absorb all these teachers,” he said.

Mr Chansa illustrated that in an instance where Government advertised to recruit 2,000 teachers, more than 45,000 people applied for the positions.

He said this was a fertile ground for untold corruption, nepotism and favoritism.

“This cannot go without serious checking. NAQEZ is in possession of information to the effect that some of our people who trained and graduated more than seven years ago are still without teaching jobs. Both public and private sectors cannot employ them,” Mr Chansa said.

He said chances of the graduates getting employed in the next 10 years were very remote saying.

“Others may end up reaching ages that would disqualify them from public service employment,” Mr Chansa said.