While great strides have been made in the education sector in the last millennium in Africa, there is still a perennial problem bedeviling the education systems in most countries - the presence of untrained and unqualified teachers teaching in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools. Deliberations of delegates of the Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities (AFTRA) conference held recently in Windhoek painted a gloomy picture of the negative impact untrained and unqualified teachers have on the academic performance of learners in schools on the continent. AFTRA is an “intergovernmental organisation comprising the ministries of education and national agencies regulating teaching in all member states of the African Union.”

 While acknowledging the huge contributions African governments have made in improving the quality of education, AFTRA delegates provided evidence that proved that in some countries, teacher demand outstripped teacher supply by huge margins. This disparity has made it impossible to provide quality teaching and learning in schools, and it makes the actualisation of SDG4, education, difficult. Also, quality education is the vehicle through which Africa aspires to achieve the AU Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want whose vision is “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international arena.”

In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, Unesco (April 2023) found out: “On average, there is one trained teacher per 58 students at primary level, while in secondary the ratio is closer to 43 pupils per trained teacher. Higher pupil-trained teacher ratios imply less face-to-face student–teacher contact time, less individualised teaching and lower levels of quality education.” It adds,  “To reach education goals by 2030, Sub-Saharan Africa will need to recruit 15 million teachers.” These statistics are not only startling but also frightening. There are only a few years to 2030 and one wonders whether it is not too late to get those teachers. Nonetheless, if public and private higher education institutions do not produce more quality educators, the situation is likely to move from bad to worse. 

What has worsened the situation in some countries, including Namibia, is the introduction of new school curricula without training teachers to implement those curricula effectively. In Kenya for instance, in 2021, more than 80% of teachers needed a diploma, not a certificate, to teach the new competency-based curriculum. There was a need to launch a one-year diploma programme to prepare teachers to implement the new curriculum. 

Similarly, in his study titled “Employment of untrained graduate teachers in schools: The Nigeria case”, Aina Jacob Kola found that “untrained graduate teachers in the classroom create more problems than the ones intended to be solved.” The researcher further noted that untrained teachers have problems with self-efficacy, pedagogical content knowledge, out-of-field teaching and professional focus.

What I gathered from attending the AFTRA conference and from the literature is that the conundrum of untrained and unqualified teachers will take more time than anticipated to eradicate. In some remote and nomadic communities in some countries in Africa, untrained and unqualified teachers run schools. It is the norm in those communities; there is nothing untoward to them. 

 I have also come across what is termed ‘one-teacher schools’, where there is one teacher or one untrained teacher in charge of all the learners in a community. Again, the provision of quality education to learners in such circumstances is highly compromised.

There is no doubt that ministries of education require huge budgets to ameliorate the problem of untrained and unqualified teachers to provide quality education. Ministries of education must expand their scopes to develop children and learners holistically from the early childhood stage to the secondary level. This is a mammoth task that requires both the public and private sectors to work together in harmony.

* Prof Jairos Kangira is a professor of English at the University of Namibia. Email address: kjairos@gmail.com