Education sector moves to boost teacher recruitment decentralization

By Elias HAKIZIMANA

The Rwanda Education sector needs to further collaborate with the districts in teacher recruitment in order to improve efficiency and tackle the shortage of teachers in some schools.

Sometimes back to date, some schools in Rwanda especially those in the twelve Years’ Basic Education (12YEBE) used to face a challenge of lacking teachers to deliver certain courses until the term or academic year ends.

Rwanda Education Board (REB) has been working on the issue since the online recruitment started and they believe with close collaboration with the districts the problem will be sorted out.

Some causes of shortage of teachers in some schools include instant resignation of professionals to other careers.

Mugenzi N.Léon -Head of Teacher  Development,  Management and Career Guidance and Counselling Department at REB told The Inspirer that placement and replacement of teachers are done every year based on school and district requests.

“Teacher recruitment is done each academic year to create a database for placement and replacement based on school and district requests. We always have a rich waiting list for replacing teachers who leave the teaching profession at any time.” Mugenzi said.

The role of TMIS

The Teacher Management Information System (TMIS) was recently introduced to ease the process of teacher recruitment.

The mini survey by The Inspirer shows that there is a progress in addressing the shortage of teachers.

Jacques Gashumba, Director of Education in Bugesera District said that through the TMIS, an improvement has been made as they do not have any gap within the present 152 pre-primary, primary and secondary schools in the district.

“This year we expect good results in timely recruitment, the shortage can happen when there is unexpected resignation of some teachers. If a teacher resigns, goes for pension leave or when we need more teachers depending on how the school is expanding, the TMIS system is used to request a teacher in order to fill such gaps.” Gashumba said

“With the system, I confirm the requisitions from the school headteachers and REB directly finds those requisitions in the system and take an action, we found remarkable results since the last semester as we did not have any shortage of teachers”, he added.

He added that the system can help to place or replace teachers within two or three weeks after sending approved requisition to Rwanda Education Board, which is different from the past where it could even take a whole semester without placing teachers.

“All the placements were hand-written and we had to double check before sending them to REB for review. Sometimes they could also conduct counter-verification, this process used to take a long time but with the TMIS system we can have teachers placed within two to three weeks and we need to shorten it to one week in the coming days.

Antoine Tuyisenge, Director of Human Resources for Teachers and Nurses in Rwamagana District reiterated that the TMIS fastens the process of teacher recruitment and placement because of timely information.

“We request REB to finalize the system so that it reaches the stage of processing teacher’s payment. The system is currently being accessed by headteachers and education officers.” Tuyisenge said.

Mugenzi explains that all in-service teachers are registered in TMIS for effective deployment and distribution of teachers.

“District requests for new teachers are made through TMIS, a basis for equitable distribution. TMIS will be used for teacher placement, teacher transfer, licensing, categorization, grading and training.” Mugenzi notes.

Budget allocation

Since January 2021, Rwanda Education Board spent Rwf 450,000,000 for teacher recruitment in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools and recruitment is still being done according to the information from REB.

Currently, 22,454 teachers who applied for jobs are shortlisted and among them 18,271 candidates sat for an online written exam, while 13,670 are successful candidates according to the information from REB.

The shortage and related impacts

Laurent Ndayisaba, Headteacher of G.S Tunda in Bugesera district said that they have had shortage of two (2) language teachers in both primary and secondary levels since the last semester.

“The shortage of teachers can cause several problems including total course loss, overloaded work of other teachers who take added responsibilities to teach in place of the missing teacher or a burden to the school to recruit a part timer teacher within its limited resources.”

The plan ahead

Mugenzi says that collaboration with the districts in teacher recruitment will ensure a very decentralized placement and replacement process.

“We shall continue collaborating with districts in teacher recruitment as stipulated in Presidential Order No. 064/01 of 16/03/2020 in its articles 17, 18, 19, 20, and 22.” He says.

REB confirms that 12,536 teachers are needed from all districts in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools during the coming academic year 2022-2023.

theinspirerpublications@gmail.com