SHORTAGE OF STAFF BRINGS DOWN EDUCATION QUALITY IN MWANZA

By Jane Kajoki,The Citizen Correspondent

Mwanza. Six out of 21 schools in Ilemela here face acute shortage of teachers, with the worst situation hitting science subjects.

The report from the school inspection conducted in the municipal’s schools from July 1 to August 20, shows that there is an urgent need for 26 teachers.

The zonal school inspector, Ms Edith Mjage, told The Citizen that science subjects and mathematics were the subjects worst affected by the shortage, a situation she said was evidenced in the students’ poor performance during national level examinations.

She expressed her astonishment at finding that the same schools had an excess of 55 social science and language teachers. Citing as an example, Ms Mjage said Lumala Secondary School in the municipality leads in having many teachers specialising in one subject  

“There are 9 history teachers, three geography teachers, six Kiswahili teachers and two English teachers, which is very disproportionate,” she said.

She named Ibungilo as another school whose teacher recruitment was inappropriately done.

“There are five history teachers,  two geography teachers, four Kiswahili teachers and one English teacher, but no science teacher,” she noted. Altogether, she said, the schools need ten teachers for Physics, five for Chemistry, six for Biology and 9 for Mathematics. He said five of the private schools she inspected; Yusta, Tabasamu, Jellys, Green View, Crescent and Nyasaka Islamic, had enough teachers.

CREDIT SOURCE: THE CITIZEN