PRIMARY and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora has called on teachers’ unions to form an independent self-regulatory body that will enforce professional conduct.
BY OBEY MANAYITI
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Zimta Teachers’ Association (Zimta)’s 34th annual conference in Harare yesterday, Dokora said the proposed body would be empowered to de-register wayward teachers.
“I will be happy to say at the conclusion of this consultation of teacher professionalism standards that we can appoint a body, a commission or council to superintendent over the standards of teachers just like you have health services body,” Dokora said.
“You don’t just get into that sector (health) unless they say, ‘yes, you are qualified, come in’, and if you misbehave just like lawyers do, it’s not the courts that say get out of the system, but their body which protects the standards in the sector.
“That body will say deregister this one and you are no longer able to practise law in this country. We should be able to have our own that says so about teachers.”
Dokora said the situation where anyone who failed to secure a job in their field of study ended up being enrolled into the teaching fraternity should be stopped.
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“It’s only in education where anybody can call themselves teachers. If you go to Parirenyatwa Hospital and say to a nurse in a ward: ‘Get out, I want to inject a patient’, I can assure you that within minutes, you will be escorted out and probably sent straight to Ingutsheni Hsopital (a Bulawayo-based health centre) because they will not understand you.
“That should also apply in teaching. You are not qualified in this profession and yet anybody can walk into a classroom, into our sector and actually demand rights to teach,” he said.
He said the proposed professional and ethics body would be able to assess the standards of teachers in terms of their conduct, their relationships with learners as well as with parents.
Dokora said teachers’ working conditions and infrastructure at most learning institutions needed to be improved.
He said the ongoing curriculum review process should ensure learners demonstrated desirable literacy and numeracy skills including practical competencies necessary for their lives.
