• Human resources for education service delivery

Human resources for education service delivery

This document reports on a survey conducted by Education International, which investigated teacher supply, teacher attrition, teacher remuneration and motivation, teacher absenteeism and union involvement in policy development in six Anglophone African countries. The survey was undertaken in The Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The main findings of the survey are:

• four of the six countries involved in the survey (66.7 per cent) had a shortage of qualified teachers, namely The Gambia, Lesotho, Tanzania and Uganda
• all six countries have a shortage of mathematics and science teachers 
• the average rate of teacher attrition in the six countries is 4 per cent
• teachers’ salaries are generally low and below the poverty datum line or cost of living 
• there is an urgent need to improve the teachers’ conditions of service in order to make the teaching profession more attractive 
• the trade union leaders in all six countries expressed the need for training in collective bargaining/negotiations, policy development and advocacy 
• teacher absenteeism was reported to be a problem (not a major one, though) in 50 per cent of the countries (Lesotho, Tanzania and Zambia) 
• collaboration between the Education International (EI) affiliates and United Nations (UN) agencies, and the World Bank, was either weak or non-existent, in most countries, and needs to be strengthened.
  

The survey therefore recommends that Education International (EI) continue to:

• lobby governments, UNESCO, the World Bank, the IMF, UNICEF and other UN agencies and organisations, the African Development Bank and the African Union to support the training and recruitment of properly trained and qualified teachers

• encourage its affiliates to recruit untrained, volunteer, contract or para teachers as members and to defend their rights
  

• scale up the EFAIDS Programme and cover as many teachers and students as possible in order to reduce the impact of HIV and AIDS on the education sector
  

• lobby governments to provide proper in-service training to untrained, volunteer, contract or para teachers
  

• organise regional and national capacity building workshops on collective bargaining and negotiations
  

• support its affiliates in calling for the establishment of effective collective bargaining structures and systems in all the participating countries and the region
  

• fight for the general improvement of the image of the teaching profession and its status.
  

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