Education ministry only wants 156 teachers from SADC

The Ministry of Education will seek to appoint only 156 teachers or less from the SADC countries, to clarify a huge misunderstanding after the ministry put out a misleading press release claiming it wants to appoint more than 2000 foreign teachers.
The decision to recruit teachers in other SADC countries came after Cabinet’s approval of the request to recruit SADC teachers for physical science, mathematics, English, and Setswana.
The Ministry of Education publishedthe Teachers Bulletin Vacancy List for 2013 in August, which contained 2227 vacant teaching posts across all 14 regions and at all grade levels.
“I would like to inform the public and clarify that of the 2227 vacant teaching positions, the Ministry of Education will only sought 156 teachers or less from the SADC countries,” said Johanna Absalom, Chief Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Education.

“The Ministry of Education is not set to employ 2000 qualified teachers from other SADC countries as it is alleged, but will only seek 156 qualified teachers.
The 156 teachers will complement the upgrade of unqualified teachers and teachers recruited locally, as we work towards and commit to training and educating for national development as per our mandate as the Ministry of Education,” she added.
According to Absalom, as part of the ministry’s efforts to address the acute shortage of qualified teachers at schools across the country, the Ministry of Education informed Cabinet about the shortage of qualified teachers earlier this year.
“The Ministry of Education requested Cabinet if we can get into a speedy process to recruit a small number of qualified teachers from other Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries,  to fill this gap timeously,” she added.
She further said, the arrangement to recruit teachers from the SADC countries will enable Namibia to benefit from their rich human resources and expertise as well as contribute to the fulfilment of the ministry’s mission, which is to provide accessible and quality education to all.
Absalom said  this arrangement is in line with the SADC Protocol on Education and Training and the African Union Protocol on Education, which make provision for countries in SADC to share resources for development.
She attributed the shortage of qualified teacher to the implementation of Universal Primary Education, which resulted in an increase of learner enrolment at primary level as well as to the merger of the colleges of education with the University of Namibia.