ZOU helping alleviate teacher shortage

EDITOR — This letter serves as a response to Taisirevei Mahoza’s letter of August 15, 2016, where he lamented the shortage of trained teachers in Hwange and Binga districts.

He attributed this to a lack of teacher training colleges in the two districts. In fact it is not only the two districts that did not have teacher training institutions for quite some time but the whole province of Matabeleland North.

As rightfully put the province depends on other provinces for the training of its personnel thereby depriving or bringing stiff competition on job opportunities upon its people.

The writer mentioned some properties that were lying idle and could be turned into teacher training institutions and these are former Kamativi Tin Mine and former Thomas Coulter Secondary School.

I want to bring to the attention of readers that although not much was happening to revive the old tin mine at Kamativi, albeit numerous promises, Thomas Coulter Annex complex in Hwange has been taken up by the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) where a number of programmes, including education, are being offered.

The University offers a Diploma in Education (primary), post graduate diploma (PGDE) and a number of degree programmes in Education all of which are at the disposal of people of Hwange and Binga to take.

There are also other programmes besides education that are offered by the university. At this point in time one would not be complaining of failing to get a place to train, especially, as a primary school teacher with the availability of the ZOU diploma.

Places at ZOU are never full. Currently there are people who were employed as teachers but on fixed contract because they have non-teaching qualifications and it is on record that the Ministry of Education is threatening not to renew their contracts if they do not train.

These people should be doing the post graduate diploma at ZOU to qualify as teachers before they are laid off. ZOU has provided solutions to alleviate the shortage of teachers in Hwange and Binga Districts but people make and have their own choices.

Probably the university was not doing enough on publicity for people to know about its existence in Mat North but it has been in existence since 2014. Notanakabona, Binga