Temporary teachers employed on contractto plug shortages

BABOKI KAYAWE
Staff Writer | Tuesday August 21, 2012 00:00

The acting director of the Kgatleng education region, Ivy Balopi said the decision to engage teachers under such contracts is an effort aimed at ensuring stability in the classroom. The region has 37 primary and 10 secondary schools:'We did that so that students would be constantly changing teachers which is something that can cause instability and hamper the learning process,' Balopi said.

A large number of teachers come from the primary level with 57 out of close to 700 staff in that sector. Balopi said this yesterday when speaking to Mmegi following the regional conference on inclusive learning which was themed, 'Inclusive Skills Development: The Foundation for Sustainable and Prosperity for All.' Consisting of graduate and retired teachers, the temporary educators replace those who recently left for further studies and others who have long left but where replaced by temporary staff who operated on very short term contracts. 'Previously, we engaged temporary teachers on three month contracts; this posed challenges and we have since changed to engaging them on a long-term, temporary basis,' she explained.

Asked whether retired teachers would be relevant in today's classroom considering changes in the curricula, she said they have taken this into account and it is  why they have recruited teachers who recently retired.Meanwhile, the Kgatleng region education meeting heard that the curriculum has to be regularly aligned with education for production as the local education system has lagged behind in that regard for a while. Moreover, it was said that teacher qualifications need to be upgraded because information keeps on changing as a result of of new discoveries and research. Addressing teachers, parents, Parents Teachers Association (PTA) and mentors at the same occasion, Balopi said the same applies to learning material like textbooks which lose relevance over time:'Some books don't have the quality information required for learning in today's environment,' she said adding, 'those who went to school 20 years ago using those textbooks know that what was relevant in that era might not be the case now,' she added.

She further explained that the Ministry of Education and Skills Development has come to the realisation that skilled people are as crucial as those in their white collar counterparts, hence the introduction of varied subjects such as Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) in primary schools and Music in secondary schools, among others.Balopi pointed out that CAPA is one reason teachers at primary level went to further their education en mass since they indicated that it was challenging for them because their teacher training did not include it. She also informed attendants of available assistance from the Out of School Education Training that promotes education with production and has since arranged for accreditation for such skills with Madirelo Testing Centre.