Author: HILDA MHAGAMA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE necessity of prioritising human resource development in the educational systems including strategising for action should be emphasized to contribute directly to the improvement of quality education.
In addressing that, there should be sustained investment in the profession to empower teachers and improve their working and employment conditions.
For instance in Tanzania, teaching sector is the leading public service employer with 266,905 staff out of 524,295 equivalents to 51 percent of all employees.
To improve in the sector, the fifth phase government has tried to closely bind relations between the teachers and their students in such a way that learning becomes fun and possible.
During the past five years, the government has employed 22,341 Primary and Secondary School teachers and in the next fiscal year, more than 13,526 will be recruited with the sole aim of improving education and raising teachers’ working spirit, besides 166,548, teachers will be promoted in the coming financial year.
Addressing teachers during Tanzania Teachers Union (TTU), Annual General Meeting early this month, President John Magufuli said his government has paid over 400bn/-to civil servants as salaries and non-salary arrears, and pledged to further continue clearing any past accumulated debt in the ongoing exercise of verifying lodged claims.
Dr Magufuli said that out of that amount the 115.3bn/-represented salary arrears and 358.1 bn/-was cumulative outstanding allowances, where 38.3bn/-was paid to 35,805 teachers.
He further said that the government also intends to clear payments amounting to 215bn/-for the remaining 2,631 retired teachers before August this year after the State merged the National Social Security Funds, where a total of 17,660 teachers shifted to the Public Service Social Security Fund (PSSSF).
Expounding, he further clarified that the government had also paid almost 85 percent of the debt it owes to retired teachers after merging the social security funds.
According to PSSSF a sum of 1.2trn/-has been paid to 15,229 retired teachers between August 2018 and June this year.
To improve services, the government disburses 600bn/- every month as salaries to the workers, where almost half goes to 267,000 teachers.
Shedding light, it was learnt that more than 306,917 civil servants were promoted in the past five years after thorough verification, where 160,367 of them were teachers and in this financial year, the government plans to promote 166,548 teachers.
In order to tackle the problem of fraud in public servants, the government is putting in place an electronic system that would collect and verify debts of all public servants, including teachers.
In its implementation, the system will be put to test this month in Dodoma, and if it shows success, it will be used across the country.
Reached for comment, experts in the education sector are of the view that, as major achievements have been recorded in sector including increased enrolments of pupils, teacher’s recruitment and deployment, it is crucial for the government to as well pay attention to a teacher’s professional development so that the quality of education is not affected.
