GOVERNMENT TO HIRE 900 TEACHERS, RENEW CONTRACTS

MBABANE – It will come as a relief to schools that government is set to hire 900 new teachers.

This was confirmed by the Minister of Education and Training, Lady Mabuza, in an interview yesterday. Mabuza said the process of hiring the teachers had already begun. She said this process follows that they had made an application for a waiver to hire the teachers. Mabuza stated that the waiver was expected to be received from Cabinet yesterday and would be implemented starting from today. She said they were hoping to complete the hiring process in a week’s time at most. She said, in their waiver submitted to government, they had requested for the employment of 900 teachers. However, she said she was not sure on whether government would eventually approve the figure. The minister said as of Tuesday, some teachers were interviewed and they were hoping that the process would be completed in a week’s time.

Employing

According to Mabuza, the employing of the teachers was to replace those who had retired, passed on or left the profession, among other reasons. She stated that they were also renewing contracts for teachers who were employed on a temporary basis. It could not be ascertained how many of the 900 teachers would be permanent and the number of those who would be placed under contracts. The hiring of the teachers comes at a time when many schools were failing to function due to the lack of educators. In some schools, pupils were left unattended as teachers had to run around trying to settle in other learners. The lack of teachers in schools was one element which had resulted in a huge disorder on the first day of reopening of schools on Monday.

In an interview with the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General, Sikelela Dlamini, he said the effort by government to hire teachers was commendable.
Dlamini said hiring of teachers was long overdue, although the number they would hire was still inadequate. He said they were not only looking forward to the renewal of contracts for teachers employed on a temporary basis, but also needed new teachers who would be enrolled for the first time mainly because one of the strategies to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic was ensuring minimum numbers of pupils that could be handled by a single teacher. “With the high numbers of our learners, about 335 000, it required for an additional 5 000 teachers to be hired,” said the SNAT secretary general.

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