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Front Page How to lure teachers back"Give them incentives"By Staff Writer The Minister for Education and Culture, Joseph Mungai, has said that the public Primary Schools can be converted into English medium institutions should the need to do so arise. The Minister explained this in Arusha recently, when he officially met with the Arumeru District Authorities, a meeting held to review and discuss various issues affecting the education sector in the district. Mungai was responding to the challenge raised to him regarding how could the district officials persuade teachers to come and work in the district, since most of them are reluctant to teach in rural areas, preferring to work in towns especially Dar-Es-salaam. AProvide them with conducive working environment, good housing and education for their children@, said Mungai. AThese are some of the baits that can be used to lure good teachers into your schools@. AIf they demand English Medium Schools for their children, don=t despair, simply convert some of the existing public ones into English medium institutions, it is allowed and there are proper steps to be followed.@he said. Apart from the Arusha School, all Government owned, Public schools, throughout the country, use the Swahili language as their official medium of conducting lessons in class. The minister admitted that most trained teachers would rather stick in Dar-Es-salaam city, doing minor private teaching practices rather than take up full practice in up-country areas, where most of them are usually posted after college training. The minister lauded Arumeru saying it was the district with the highest number of schools in the country, without much assistance from the Government. The district was also praised for putting on priority the issue of staff housing. The District Education Officer (DEO), Theodori Massawe had earlier on presented a report which showed that, Arumeru has 219 primary schools, out of which 195 are public schools and 24 private ones. The district also has 43 secondary schools, among them, 26 were Government owned and 17 privately owned, but mostly by institutions. Arumeru also has about 20 higher learning institutions, including 3 Universities, 14 teachers colleges of different genre, 2 vocational training institutes and others. Arumeru has so far managed to build 612 teachers= houses, the number which happens to be inadequate because the district is experiencing a shortage of 1492 staff housing units for teachers, to reach the actual requirement of 2104 houses.
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