Why govt should look into teachers working conditions

BASED on the teacher-pupil ratio in most primary and secondary schools in Zimbabwe, the government should improve teachers working conditions.

I have no doubt that the ration currently stands at 1:50, and in some extreme cases one teacher to 80 learners, a scenario which definitely compromises quality of the end result.

Just imagine how parents are traumatised and tormented by just one or two children of ECD level at home. What about a teacher, who is expected to take good care of 80 of such children. Twenty-five to 30 learners is a reasonable number which a teacher can effectively handle.

Two years ago, government, through the Primary and Secondary Education ministry, ordered the freezing of teacher recruitment, citing financial constraints. This did not only affect newly-qualified teachers waiting for employment, but also learners and the many teachers who are carrying heavy loads, catering for those classes without teachers.

Researchers have observed that there are a number of factors that affect pupils participation and performance due to large classes.

These factors include low participation, unnecessary movements, breaking out of fights during lessons, scramble for limited resources, failure to participate in groups and domination by other pupils during group work, among plethora of factors.

The teacher cannot effectively attend to the needs of all the learners, as some slow learners need one-on-one interaction to master problematic concepts. The classroom practitioner cannot effectively give written exercises to 80 learners and mark all of them before giving them new work.

Large class sizes do not allow for critical thinking, they stifle student's creativity when activity-based and child-centred methods are not used.

Although the newly-introduced curriculum sounds good, it has received a lot of criticism from different stakeholders including teachers themselves.

Teachers are complaining that the new curriculum has increased their workload, as it brought new learning areas with a lot of content and to make matters worse without teaching materials.

Given the foregoing circumstances, it is high time the government revisited teachers' working conditions for the sake of the development of the country.

Disgusted Parent