Textbook shortage impacts negatively on education

From a distance, one would think that they are playing because of the noise they are making as they scramble for a textbook — the only one available for them for sharing.
This scenario, captured in the city recently, is typical of what happens at many schools nationwide, where eight or more pupils share a single textbook. It some cases, it is even worse because the teacher is the only one with a textbook and has to read relevant sections out to his class and write notes on the board.
The critical shortage of textbooks and other teaching and learning materials has affected the education sector a great deal.
The current pupil to textbook ratio stands at one to 10 but in rural areas, it is worse with as much as 20 percent of primary schools in those areas without any textbooks at all.
In an initiative aimed at mobilising resources for the education sector and reversing the trend, the Government came up with a donor-driven textbook provision scheme under the Education Transition Fund (ETD) early this year.
This initiative seeks to counter the shortage of resources in the education sector and reduce the student-textbook ratio to 1:1.
In recent years textbook shortages have hit public schools at both primary and secondary level.
Teachers have welcomed the Government’s programme of distributing textbooks to primary schools nationwide. They say provision of textbooks and other support teaching and learning materials is central to quality delivery of education at all levels. Absence of these in the past years has negatively affected the quality of education.
This is why a senior teacher at Insukamini Primary School in Bulawayo thinks the distribution of textbooks will improve the nation’s pass rate.
“The shortage of textbooks is affecting the performance of students. Primary learning is a foundation for secondary level and once it is not strong there is a problem, secondary schools end up producing semi-literate students,” said the teacher, who refused to be named for professional reasons.
The lack of books has brought immense challenges upon pupils and teachers alike, said Mrs Molly Mtigwe, a Grade Seven teacher at a local primary school.
She said up to eight pupils are forced to crowd around a single textbook at her school and from that book they should all see and grasp the concept being taught.
“Eight pupils have to share a single book. It is difficult for those in the far corners to access the contents and in the end they lose out on some concepts and it becomes difficult for pupils to attain good grades,” Mrs Mtigwe said.
The learning environment for pupils has turned into that of struggling to access information. If pupils have to stand up or strain themselves to reach textbooks does education seem enjoyable to them?
The shortage of textbooks has made it difficult for teachers to complete syllabi as they are often forced to move at a slower pace. This greatly affects Grade Seven pupils when they sit for their final exams.
Another Grade Seven teacher at another local school said the pupils rely mostly on the teacher and the chalkboard, which makes it difficult to progress fast. She added that if the syllabus is not completed there is no time for revisions, which must normally prepare pupils for examinations.
Teachers are now experiencing an extra workload, as, in the words of a Grade Two teacher, they now have to transfer what is in the books onto the chalkboard.
“We have swarms of work to write on the chalkboard. When the pupils are answering a comprehension passage I have to copy it on the chalkboard, I cannot dictate it to them because they are young,” she said.
Another teacher said a reading, spelling and word construction foundation is established at the first stage of primary education and it is necessary that it is strong.
“In primary education as a pupil advances the lessons advance, each grade has a particular area it tackles. Grade One lays a foundation for reading and writing and once these are not established the child is academically malnourished,” she said.
She explained that Grade One pupils learn through seeing and experiencing the real thing and not through abstracts.
“Children are now in blinkers, they only learn what they are taught which has crippled their education,” Mrs Mtigwe said.
A survey carried out by Chronicle in local primary schools showed that most schools are facing a serious shortage of textbooks and teaching resources, which makes the learning process difficult.
Mismanagement of textbooks in schools has contributed to scarcity of textbooks in local schools.
To verify this problem in preparation of the coming books the Ministry of Education has organised workshops, an initiative that teaches each district in the city about maintenance of books.
A local primary school head who attended one of the workshops recently at Coghlan Primary School said the programme was a good initiative meant to equip staff members on record-keeping.
“We attended a workshop as the Mzilikazi District. We were encouraged to come up with a master asset register which contains a record of all textbooks in the school, and a class asset register containing records for each class,” he said.
He added that the initiative taken by the Government to distribute books was a blessing to national schools, which should not be blown away.
“This is a good opportunity to re-establish the education level in our nation and we have to monitor the maintenance of these books,” he said.
The challenges teachers and pupils are facing in the wake of the acute shortage of textbooks and other learning materials could, however, be a thing of the past as distribution of the books under the ETF and targeting the remotest parts has started. The process will run for the next three months.
Launching the ETF textbook distribution programme recently, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said the goal of the exercise is to mobilise resources for the education sector where each pupil in country’s 5 575 primary schools would receive a set of four basic textbooks.
Early this year, the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Unicef and other donors entered into a partnership to produce a total of 13 250 000 textbooks and stationery kits nationwide under the ETF in a bid to improve the quality of education in the country.
The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart, said the distribution of textbooks would give priority to rural schools.

You Might Also Like

Comments