Auxiliary teachers: Rescued or abused?

The practice of engaging public primary school teachers on temporary or contract basis has been a focus of countless studies.

In one of the research findings, titled ‘Teacher Shortages, Teacher Contracts and their Impact on Education in Africa’, Jean Bourdon Iredu, Markus Frölich Siaw and Katharina Michaelowa acknowledge the extent of the practice.

Published by the Germany-based Institute for the Study of Labour—which is based in Bonn— the academicians indicate that temporary teachers have been playing a fill-gap role.

“In most countries, teachers are employed as civil servants, except for short-term replacements, probation periods, or until they have reached the required qualification level.

“In recent years, however, the focus on increased access to education, along with high population growth rates and tight budget constraints, led to the broad-based introduction of contract teacher schemes, whereby teachers were hired on contracts rather than on civil-servant positions, usually combined with lower salaries and also lower professional pre-service training requirements.

“This permitted a large increase in the number of teachers. While most countries in South Asia and Latin America started rather early and gradually introduced these changes without ever striving for a complete renewal of their teaching staff, public policy reform in Africa was typically introduced later, i.e. towards the mid or even late 1990s, but rather fast. In the early years of the new century, the period our empirical analysis will refer to, contract teachers already made up a sizeable share of the total teaching population,” they indicate.

They then offer examples of countries that tried the system and got stuck in its pit.

They cite Niger, where no more civil servants were engaged in the teaching profession at primary school level after the contract teacher programme had been put in place in 1998.

Instead, they indicate, almost 2,800 new teachers were recruited every year, as compared to an average of 520 per year between 1990 and 1998.

By the year 2000, contract teachers already made up the majority of the primary school teacher population.

In the case of Malawi, People’s Federation for National Peace and Development (Pefenap)— which has been implementing a primary education promotion programme in Chileka, Blantyre—indicates that auxiliary teachers became an almost-permanent national feature after the introduction of free primary education in 1994.

“The number of learners did not match with that of teachers; as such, the government employed auxiliary teachers, who helped shape the face of education in Malawi,” said Pefenap Executive Director Edward Chaka.

The practice continues, even after the United Democratic Front regime that introduced the system came and went.

The Democratic Progressive Party, People’s Party and, now, the governing Malawi Congress Party have continued implementing the policy that culminates in the engagement of auxiliary teachers in the country.

On July 15 2024, for instance, the Ministry of Education announced that it would engage more auxiliary teachers to help improve service delivery in the education sector.

The 4,200 temporary teachers are set to be recruited for the forthcoming 2024-25 academic year.

The ministry also announced that it had raised the would-be recruited teachers payment from K80,000 to K120,000.

The teachers are drawn from Initial Primary Teacher Education (IPTE) cohorts 14, 15 and 16 and have been engaged through the Malawi Education Reform Programme.

Once engaged, the teachers would be deployed to all the 32 education districts of the country.

Principal Secretary for Education Mangani Katundu indicates that teachers who are willing to take up the temporary teaching position should report at their respective work stations on September 1 2024.

He further indicates that the teachers risk automatic withdrawal if they do not do so by September 15 2024.

“The temporary engagement of the auxiliary teachers forms part of efforts by the government to reduce the pupil-qualified teacher ratio across the country,” he indicates in a statement.

The ministry has, however, emphasised the point that the engagement is temporary.

“The ministry would like to inform those willing to be engaged as temporary teachers that this is a temporary engagement and does not, in any way, signal automatic employment on permanent basis after the expiry of the temporary contract period,” Katundu stresses.

The move has, however, attracted mixed reactions.

For instance, primary school teachers who are yet to be permanently employed by the government have expressed dismay over the Ministry of Education’s move to recruit 4,200 auxiliary teachers for the 2024-25 academic year.

The teachers who are eyeing the permanent jobs were engaged in the 2023-24 academic year but their contracts expired.

National spokesperson for the unemployed primary school teachers Cornelius Mwalure said they were shocked with the development as they were expecting the ministry to permanently absorb them into the system.

“We are raising funds as we want to seek legal services so that we can obtain an injunction to stop the auxiliary teachers’ recruitment programme,” Mwalure said.

He said some of the unemployed teachers have been engaging in auxiliary work for at least four years.

They are not without backing.

For instance, Civil Society Education Coalition Executive Director Benedicto Kondowe has pointed out that the recruitment of teachers on auxiliary basis may have a negative impact on service delivery.

“They may be demoralised and this may affect education standards,” he pointed out.

He was, however, quick to say the move is also good, as the ministry is filling a resource gap.

However, Ministry of Education spokesperson Mphatso Nkuonera has stressed that the ministry could not permanently employ all those that need jobs as that may have financial implications.

“The government is committed and will continue hiring these teachers.

“However, we cannot employ them all at once as that requires more resources,” Nkuonera said.

He said the ministry was undertaking interventions to lessen the learner-teacher ratio in all primary schools in the country.

“You are aware that through the district councils, we are recruiting teachers and, recently, the Ministry of Education hired and promoted 9,753 secondary school teachers at once. That is the first thing to happen in history and, so, we are committed,” he said.

This is happening at a time the country has at least 13,000 primary school teachers from IPTE 14,15,16 and 17 who are not employed by the government.

Chances are that, without donor support, they may never have a permanent place in the primary school classroom.

It is a typical case of human resources being put to waste by, of all people, government officials who claim to have teachers’ welfare at heart.