By Petrina Kyobutungi, Paul Kiwuuwa & John Agaba,
Government is in preparations to recruit 10,000 primary school teachers to tackle the problem of low staff in primary school.
Assistant commissioner for primary education Tony Mukasa-Lusambu. PHOTO/Esther Namirimu
Assistant commissioner for primary education Tony Mukasa-Lusambu said that starting this February they would embark on a massive recruitment of teachers in all districts to satisfy the current demand.
“There are many teachers who have died, others who have retired, and others who have left the teaching service,’’ said Mukasa-Lusambu.
“Also, the education ministry keeps on taking on more and more community-based schools but most of them don’t have enough teachers. So we need to address these challenges.”
Mukasa-Lusambu reveled this during the district education officers and other education stakeholders’ workshop at Speke Resort Munyonyo.
The workshop was organized by World Vision-Uganda to brainstorm on how best they can improve the quality of education in the lower education levels.
He said that every Primary Seven school must have a minimum of seven teachers, the head teacher inclusive, with the official pupil-teacher ratio being 53 pupils to one teacher.
But the situation on the ground is far from what is required.
Currently, some teachers single-handedly handle classes of more than 80 pupils, something that is crippling the education standards in schools.
The recently released Primary Leaving Exams (PLE) results show that urban schools performed better than rural schools. Some of the reasons education experts pointed out for this disparity in performance are lack of enough teachers and absenteeism both for teachers and pupils.
Mukasa-Lusambu urged the district education officers to ensure that the pupil-teacher ratio is adhered to. And that if a school does not stick to this, the head teacher complies a report and sends it to the education ministry.