The government of Tanzania yesterday announced it would hire 31,056 primary and secondary school teachers next month to end the anxiety that has gripped thousands of graduates who have waited for nearly two years for employment.
The permanent secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government), Mr Jumanne Sagini, said rural areas and municipalities with serious shortage of teachers would be given priority under this new employment oppenings. He noted that, most of the urban areas would not be considered, thus called on the new teachers to be ready to work in rural areas.
“We do this after establishing that there is a huge difference in the ratio of teachers between rural and urban areas,” he told a news conference in his office yesterday.
The government has already directed municipal directors to carry out a thorough scrutiny of the staff deployment to ensure teachers who overstayed are transfered. And where there is more than the number of teachers required, some should be moved, he said.
Tanzania has a shortage of over 45,000 teachers for primary and secondary schools. Science disciplines are the hardest hit by the shortage that impacts negatively on the delivery of quality education.
Meanwhile, Mr Sagini directed district executive directors (DEDs) to take disciplinary measures in their jurisdiction against headteachers who closed public schools over lack of food. He wondered why the schools claimed to have no food while for financial year 2014/2015 the government had disbursed Sh28.1 billion, which is 66.7 per cent of the Sh42.1 billion allocated for that purpose.
Last financial month, the government disbursed Sh8.4 billion to the municipalities for food in schools, he said.
He said the DEDs in regions where some schools were closed also confirmed that the money was in the accounts of their municipalities.
“We are now waiting for explanations from directors why schools did not have food while the government has already released the money,” he said.
He said, however, the headteachers were wrong to close schools because they did so without communicating with their DEDs, who principally were the owners of the schools.
Closed secondary schools included Rugambwa, Kahororo, Nyakato, Ihungo, Lyamungo, Mpwapwa and Abeid Amani Karume.
Many more were reported closed last month in Tabora over the same reasons.
Source: The Citizen
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