More than 10,000 teachers are needed to support the 9-Year Basic Education (9-YBE), programme which has seen a sharp increase in student enrolment levels since it was introduced in 2009.

Statistics from the Teacher Service Commission (TSC) show that the next academic year will require an additional 4,288 teachers in primary and 5,757 in secondary schools.

According to the Executive Secretary of TSC, Emmanuel Muvunyi, the government is currently doing everything possible to address the issue of teacher shortages while at the same time increasing recruitment of high calibre individuals into the teaching profession.

"The Ministry of Education is in a drive to attract motivated and competent individuals to join the teaching profession by putting in place a number of incentives,” said Muvunyi.
He explained that graduates who used government funding to pay for school will have their loan reimbursement waived if they teach for a minimum of four years.

There are currently 2,800 students expected to graduate at the end of this academic year from the various teacher training colleges across the country.

Currently, the teaching profession comprises 50,654 teachers in the country.

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