"A PhD To Become The Minimum Qualification For Headmasters"
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Torerayi Moyo has said school heads and teachers’ qualifications will be reviewed so that a PhD will be the minimum qualification for school heads and diploma holders will be deemed unqualified to teach in public schools.
No specific timeframes have been set for the review but Moyo urged teachers to upgrade their qualifications to ensure that they remain relevant to the demands of the ever-advancing world and be able to deliver education of the highest quality.
Moyo said the manpower development leave is set to be resuscitated.
He said this while addressing heads of primary and secondary schools, district school inspectors and education officials at St Columbus High School in Bulawayo on Thursday. Said Moyo (via The Sunday News):
I want to encourage you to continuously upgrade yourselves, I started with a Diploma in Education but I had to continue aiming for the self-actualisation stage. I see youthful faces among you who were lucky to be promoted and are headmasters.
There will come a time when we will come up with a circular to say for you to become a headmaster of a high school you must have a PhD, and for you to become a teacher, teaching in our primary schools you must have a degree.
He reminded school heads that there was a time when teachers of Grade ones were holders of the Zimbabwe Junior Certificate and were later removed.
Ordinary Level certificate holders were allowed to teach early grades but they were later removed as well. The Minister added:
There will come a time when diploma holders will no longer be wanted, so why don’t you take this opportunity to take time to do your studies? The sky is the limit for each one of you to continue to aim higher.
Minister Moyo, who is the MP for Gokwe Chireya (ZANU PF) and a former chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education in the 9th Parliament, shared his experience as a beneficiary of manpower development leave and how he advanced his education. He said:
During the course of my profession as a teacher, I went on study leave to do an undergraduate degree.
We need to resuscitate the manpower development leave so that our teachers will also be beneficiaries of that very important programme.
For three years when I was studying for a Bachelor of Arts General in my first year and my Honours in my second year, I remember I was entitled to a salary for those three years, of course, it was reduced to half pay.
I was also a beneficiary of pay-outs. When I did my Master of Arts, it was a full-time programme, I was also entitled to my salary.
When I went to study for my PhD at Rhodes University in South Africa I was also on a full-time programme between 2015 and 2017, I was on full pay.
At that time, I was already teaching at the University of Zimbabwe as a History lecturer.
Moyo also reminded school heads that standing rules and orders stipulate that when one is promoted to be a school head and assumes duty, they cannot transfer before they complete probation.
More: Pindula News
