Cuito - The Minister of Education, Luísa Grilo, admitted Thursday in Bié province, that the sector needs more teachers and with the desired qualifications, despite the fact that the number of staff is growing substantially year on year.
The minister made the statement at the opening of the 2nd Consultative Council of the Ministry of Education (MED) being held under the slogan: "The teachers we need for the education we want - The global imperative to reverse the teacher shortage".
Without specifying the number of teachers needed, the minister said that the shortage of teachers with the desired skills is a global reality that requires the recruitment of new staff, an exercise that has been carried out with some regularity to reduce the current deficit.
The minister underscored that as in other countries, Angola has faced the challenge of welcoming into its education and teaching system good staff with solid technical training who, unfortunately, in some cases do not have the specific training required for teaching.
In order to change this situation, the minister spoke of the need to solidify the system of qualification and pedagogical aggregation of these technicians, so that they can integrate properly and respond effectively to the demands of the education and teaching system and the demands of society in general.
According to the minister, the Angolan government has set a priority for 2023-2027 of implementing a training and management policy for teaching staff, which involves master's courses in specific methodologies for pre-school and primary education, Portuguese language, maths and science in secondary education.
According to the minister, the plan also includes the transition of training for secondary school teachers to higher education and the training plan for technical staff at teaching schools, strengthening the pedagogical supervision skills of school managers, developing postgraduate courses to improve the academic level of teachers and implementing mechanisms to assess the quality of teaching at teacher training institutions.
The minister recognized that the good performance of teachers does not depend solely on their technical, academic and scientific skills, and that there is a need to invest in other related areas in order to respond and correspond to the current needs of society.
To this end, the minister said that the sector is carrying out the Curriculum Transformation Program (PROTC-Angola: 2023-2027), which is focused on improving the quality of teaching, from a systematic perspective that includes study plans, programs, textbooks, activity books, teacher guides and materials to support the national learning assessment system.
In this way, the minister added that the aim is for pupils to have the basic skills of reading, writing and calculating at the right levels.
More responsibility for school managers in their pedagogical role
The minister called on the provincial directors to work with the school managers, to take on their responsibility in terms of pedagogical policy with rigor.
Luísa Grilo considered it imperative that managers accompany, supervise and support teachers in the processes of planning lessons and teaching activities, based on the curriculum, assessing learning and all related tasks.
Expanding and modernizing the education system
Luísa Grilo added that Angolan government's vision for education and teaching system continues to revolve around its expansion and modernization, which implies promoting mass access to all levels of education, expanding the public school network in order to increase school enrolment rates.
To this end, the minister said more than a thousand new schools have been made available for the 2023/2024 school year, bringing the school network to around 13,000 establishments, to cater for a student population of more than nine million at pre-school, primary and secondary levels.
In addition, Grilo said that the ministry continues to focus on digital education and increasing literacy levels, as this is an indispensable tool for increasing access to education on a large scale, promoting human resources and strengthening the competitiveness of human capital.
The MED Consultative Council, which is taking place a year after the first one and which brings together nearly 200 delegates, aims, among other things, to assess the degree of implementation of the sector's programs and to redefine methodological and action strategies that contribute to improving learning.
Over the course of three days, delegates from the country's 18 provinces, including secretaries of state, national, provincial and school directors, teachers and representatives of the ministerial department's partner institutions, will debate 33 topics spread over six panels.
The topics include: "Girl Empowerment and Learning for All Project - PAT II, Progress of activities", "Balance of the first five years of implementation of the National Special Education Policy geared towards school inclusion", "Strategic planning of human resources", "School management", "The legal framework of the MED" and "Assessment methods in the Angolan education system". VKY/PLB/TED/AMP
