Pledge to address special education teachers’ snags

by Sylivester Domasa & Bernad Lugongo

THE government has conceded that there is a shortage of special education teachers, but says it hadn’t reached crisis dimensions, vowing that a coherent plan to address the problem was being charted.

The Deputy Minister of State in the Office of the President (Regional Administration and Local Governments), Mr Josephat Kakunda, says the government had directed all district councils to post enough special education teachers to schools facing a shortage. According to the deputy minister, Tanzania had 3,957 trained special teachers or 74.3 per cent of the required 5,324.
He was responding to a question posed in the National Assembly by Buyungu MP (Chadema), Mr Kasuku Bilago. “I am directing all directors to transfer all trained teachers to special schools by December, this year,” he said.
Earlier, the lawmaker expressed concern over teachers for special education not being attached to special schools and sought the government’s commitment on addressing the issue.
The deputy minister said the government hired 614 special education teachers in 2016, but was considering to seek a go-ahead from the ministry responsible for public service management to hire more teachers.
In a supplementary question, Rombo MP, Joseph Selasini (Chadema), pointed out that the performance of most schools for special education was poor due to the shortage of teachers.
The MP asked the government to immediately review its plans, in order to help children admitted to the institutions.
Last year, the government directed all district councils to identify at least one secondary school for special education, to cater mainly for pupils and students with special needs.