Malawi pupil teacher ratio biggest challenge – Official
Government has confessed that harmonization of pupil teacher ratio remains a challenge in public schools.
Development Aid from People to People (DAPP) has graduated 63 primary school teachers at function which took place at its Dowa Teachers Training Colleges.
Ministry of Education Science and Technology official Mary Chirwa, who is also Coordinator of Teaching Department and Development, admitted that the Malawi government is struggling to balance the equation of pupil to teacher ratio due to inadequate shortage of teachers.
Chirwa said currently the number of teachers which is only 54,000 is not enough to normalize teacher pupil ratio.
“We need to train almost 8,000 teachers if the teacher pupil ratio is to normalize but we cannot manage to do that on our own as government,” said Chirwa.
Chirwa then commended Dowa DAPP for complimenting government effort on training of teachers.
DAPP Country Manager, Lisbeth Thomsen said her organization will continue to train teachers as one way of complimenting government efforts for the attainment of quality education.
Thomsen said quality education plays vital role in the development of any country in the world.
Currently, DAPP is running four TCCs and these are; Chilangoma, Namalika, and Mzimba.
Pupil teacher ratio has nothing to do with quality of education…it is the quality of the teacher that matters! Stop wasting resources on half baked teachers, improve the teachers’ knowledge and keep the teachers in the classroom rather than on prolonged breaks and reduce the time they spend collecting salaries and conducting parttime lessons.