90% teachers training budget slash queried

The Civil Society Education Coalition (Csec) has asked government to explain the cut in funding for training of secondary school teachers from K16 billion to K2 billion, saying the move is retrogressive.

Speaking in a telephone interview yesterday, Csec executive director Benedicto Kondowe said a cut of such magnitude cannot be implemented at once; hence, the need for government to justify the reduction.

He said: “The cut is huge. A cut in excess of 90 percent will have a big impact on training of teachers. We need to understand what has informed such a reduction.

“Even if government wanted to shift from teachers training, it would not have been that big. A 40 percent funding cut would make sense.”

But Kondowe noted that the cut will not have an impact on the recruitment of secondary school teachers because there are several trained teachers yet to be absorbed.

He said the impact can only be felt if the cut is sustained for a number of years.

Government is in the process of expanding secondary education to accommodate more learners.

Currently, there are about 11 900 secondary school teachers, but the country needs about 30 000 teachers to ensure that there are adequate teachers in schools.

Ministry of Education spokesperson Mphatso Nkuonera said he needed to consult on why there is such a huge cut in the budget for training secondary school teachers and how the ministry intends to support those already in the system.

Low funding for training comes against the background of an increase in the education sector budget by about five percent in real terms in the 2023/14 financial year compared to 2022/23.

In the current year, government has allocated K603 billion to the education sector compared to K462 billion in the previous year. This translates to a 30 percent increase in nominal terms, compared to the levels of 2022/23 and five percent in real terms considering the average annual inflation of around 20 percent for 2022/23.

Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda said the growth in the education budget is largely driven by increases in the personal emoluments budget to cater for salaries and wages of teachers and education staff as well as growth in the budgets for operations of the education sector.