26 Nov 2015

The Assistance Minister of Education and Skills Development, Mr Moiseraele Goya, says he is aware that some primary school teachers in the Southern District have overstayed in their current schools.

The minister told Parliament that efforts were being made to address the situation. 

He said out of a total of 1 339 teachers, 89 had stayed for over 10 years, which represented seven per cent.

In addition, the assistant minister said out of the 89 teachers, 56 per cent had been promoted within the same period.

He also said within the cohort of 89 teachers, six held degrees, 58 diplomas and 25 held primary teacher’s certificate.

He said overstays were attributed to the fact that a good number of serving teachers in urban and peri-urban centres were transferred from remote areas mostly on medical grounds.

Therefore, he said it proved difficult to transfer them back to remote areas, whilst same reasons still prevailed.

He assured Parliament that his ministry would continue to transfer teachers to reduce overstays whenever vacancies occurred and funds permitting. He explained that his ministry will do all within their control to adhere to policies on promotion, transfers and training.

Also worth noting he said was the fact that development of teachers at primary and secondary level remained a priority  as part of their endeavour to produce globally competitive resource.

He further said to this end they had 3014 teachers undergoing upgrading from certificate to diploma and diploma to degree levels in the past three years.

Minister Goya was responding to a question from Kanye South MP, Mr Abram Kesupile who had asked if the minister was aware that some primary school teachers in the Southern District have overstayed in the schools that they teach, some have not been promoted for over 10 years and not even sent for further studies.

He said if so the minister  should state the reasons for failure to observe the policies guiding transfers to avoid overstaying, promotions or progression and further studies and why overstaying seems to mostly affect teachers in rural schools. Ends