Government has been challenged to address the inequalities that exist between community day and conventional secondary schools if the country is to make progress in secondary education.
The call has been made at an education conference, aimed at bridging inequalities in education sector held in Rumphi.
During the meeting, it emerged that most teachers in community day secondary schools have primary school teaching qualifications compared to graduates that are teaching in conventional secondary schools.
In an interview with MIJ Online Daniel Msiska, programs coordinator for gender and social inclusion at Youth Society said for instance in Rumphi district forty-three learners have been selected to go to public universities from Rumphi secondary school while twenty-two community day secondary schools have only produced thirteen students to public universities.
“That is one challenge that is clear not only in Rumphi but across the country where primary school teachers are promoted to teach in secondary schools, I think that is wrong obviously, because primary school teachers are trained to teach in primary school because if the start teaching at CDSS they would have to start learning themselves” said Msiska.
Msiska added that development has contributed to poor performance of learners in community day secondary schools during MSCE examinations.
“We have lots of graduates out there from the numerous universities, qualified tea hers to teach in secondary schools, why not priotize employment of these teachers” added Msiska.
On the other hand lack of resources in community day secondary schools has also been a challenge in regards to science subjects as compared to conventional secondary schools.
According to Mbalanda Zulu, Head teacher of Chankhomi community day secondary school, teaching in CDSS is quite tough looking at the qualifications of teachers in schools.
“You may find that a teacher was qualified to teach history in CDSS for example, but because of the need to offer all the subjects that teacher may offer to teach physics” said Zulu.
Reacting to the development Victor Lungu, senior quality assurance officer for northern education division admitted that the division has been deploying primary school teachers to community day secondary schools, on grounds that houses for teachers in CDSS are not conducive for graduates.
“That is really true, most of the CDSS’s do not have teachers and just to beef up the staff, we use primary school teachers, of which is not our wish to use them, we try here and there to deploy secondary school teachers but the main challenge that is there is in most of these CDSS is housing problems” said Lungu.
He then urged the community to come up with good structures that can accommodate secondary school teachers.
Meanwhile, government is expected to recruit 2,200 secondary school teachers.
