08.08.07
TEACHERS FOR RURAL SCHOOLS: A CHALLENGE FOR AFRICA
TEACHERS FOR RURAL SCHOOLS: A CHALLENGE FOR AFRICA
Mulkeen, A.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) (2005)
This paper is based on country case studies done in
conjunction with the World Bank in Lesotho, Malawi,
Mozambique, Uganda and Tanzania, during 2005. It highlights
the difficulties of ensuring good quality teachers in
isolated rural schools, and considers the implications for:
teacher deployment policy; teacher utilisation, and teacher
management and supervision.
It finds that in rural areas:
* teacher deployment practices leave fewer teachers, more
unfilled posts, and more unqualified teachers
* teacher utilisation practices result in larger class
sizes at early grades. In other cases teachers without
adequate preparation and materials are left trying to
handle multigrade teaching. At the same time, qualified
teachers may be found working with very small classes
* limited teacher management systems may result in higher
absenteeism, and shorter working hours. In addition the
systems to ensure and develop the quality of teaching
(inspection and support services) are often weaker in rural
areas. In effect, the weakest teachers receive the least
support.The author concludes that there is a clear need
for both a better categorisation of schools, and a more
systematic monitoring of the relative situation of rural
schools.
TO SEE THIS DOCUMENT, PLEASE GO TO:
http://www.fao.org/SD/ERP/addisababa/Papers/Rural%20Teacher%20issues%20paper%20(A.Mulkeen)_ENG.doc
