Uchechukwu Nnaike
3 November 2009
Lagos — Confronted with a need to recruit more teachers necessary to attain Education for All (EFA) goals in Africa by 2015 and the need for quality in education delivery, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), the World Bank, Education International (EI) and the Malian Ministry of Basic Education, Literacy and National Languages brought stakeholders from 22 countries to Bamako, the Malian capital to brainstorm on how to reduce the number of contractual teachers being used in some countries in favour of qualified ones.
The conference tagged, 'Bamako+5 Conference on Contractual Teachers', which took place from October 27-29, 2009, was organised not only as a follow-up on the 2004 Bamako conference but also to learn about the scale of the use of contractual teachers in Anglophone and Lusophone African countries, as part of an overall context of responding to the teacher gap to achieve EFA goals.
According to a report by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics/EFA, the number of teachers needed to attain EFA goals in Africa is estimated at 2.4 million. Also, consideration was given to the rate at which teachers leave the profession, known technically as attrition rates that vary from five percent to eight percent, under different assumption would produce: 2.7 million teachers at an attrition rate of five percent; 3.2 million teachers at 6.5 percent attrition rate and 3.7 million teachers at an attrition rate of eight percent.
The conference observed that the dearth of teachers in the continent was occasioned by factors such as limited number of training institutions and limited human resources; shortage of post-primary school leavers with the requisite educational background to take teacher training courses; few training programmes geared towards preparing school principals and school managers; paucity of innovative/alternative ways of preparing teachers and ensuring their professional development. These resulted in the recruitment of contractual or community teachers to bridge the gap created by the shortage of teachers.
Contractual teachers, according to the Coordinator, ADEA Working Group on Communication for Education and Development (WGCOMED), Mr. Lawalley Cole, possess basic secondary education, but with no formal teacher training. "In some cases, they are unemployed graduates, or graduates from teacher colleges, or secondary school graduates fresh from the classroom, who are hired to teach on a contract basis at a lower salary than regular teachers receive."
Rather than a temporary measure to cope with the shortage of teachers, the recruitment of this category of teachers has been intensified in some countries, even to the extent of outnumbering qualified teachers. This situation generated concerns among stakeholders because of the threat it posed to quality delivery, considering the fact that most of these teachers deliver poor results on account of their low educational attainment and insufficient training, combined with unattractive terms of employment.
In November 2004, ADEA, in collaboration with the World Bank and EI, organised a conference in Bamako to address the recruitment and employment of contractual teachers in Francophone African countries. An agreement, known as the Bamako Consensus, which emerged from deliberations recognised that the use of contractual teachers offered a number of opportunities and that all the countries that have taken this path have made very significant progress in enrolment. However, a general consensus was that recourse to contractual teachers undoubtedly entails risks for the quality of the education provided and for the retention and effectiveness of teaching staff.
The Consensus urged that "countries need to meet certain minimum criteria for recruitment, training, contracts and working conditions. It is thus becoming increasingly urgent to implement a framework for resolving questions on the recruitment, training, social protection and career track of such teachers."
The conference, therefore, recommended the development of a policy framework to assist governments in gradually integrating and providing professional development for contractual teachers in Francophone countries.
A follow-up workshop held in July 2007 in Dakar produced preliminary versions of two instruments that were designed to guide countries in their efforts to formulate the policy: A policy framework for the recruitment, training and professional development of contractual teachers; a policy framework establishing career tracks, opportunities for advancement, guarantees of social protection and the rights and obligations of contractual teachers.
Specific objectives of the Bamako+5 conference were therefore to take stock of progress made in the 11 Francophone countries that participated in the 2004 conference and the difficulties encountered to advance towards the adoption and implementation of the two policy and strategic frameworks on teachers' professional development and career management; share successful experiences and lessons learnt; discuss collegially, the policies and strategies to be promoted for appropriate recruitment of teachers, including control over the data on teacher supply and demand.
Others were to promote dialogue on resource mobilisation among the various stakeholders and partners; explore new opportunities available for teacher training and development; promote consultation and coordination of existing initiatives to support teachers and to promote and give incentive for good practice as regards harmonisation of the status and career possibilities of primary school teachers, based on country experiences.
Declaring the conference open, the Minister of Education of Mali, Mr. Salikou Sanogo stressed the need for governments of the African countries that use contractual teachers to incorporate them in the public service of their respective countries. According to Sanogo, said the ones recruited by state governments should be in the state public service, while those recruited by municipal governments be in the municipal public service. The move, he said would help improve the living and working conditions of this category of teachers and would contribute to the provision of quality education.
Some of the papers presented at the conference focussed on: Framing the Conference: Objectives and Expected Outcomes, by the Executive Secretary of ADEA, Mr. Ahlin Byll-Cataria; Progress and Challenges of EFA in Africa- Overview of Situation, by a member of the Task Force on Teachers for EFA, Ms. Gabrielle Bonnet; Needs for Teachers in Africa and Challenges, by a representative of UIS-UNESCO, Mr. Yacouba Djibo Abdou; Review of Progress made by TISSA, by representatives of BREDA-UNESCO, Mrs. Ann-Therese Ndong Jatta and Mr. Jean-Marc Bernard.
There was also a presentation of the survey carried out by ADEA and EI on the implementation of the Bamako Consensus by the duo of Jean Adotevi and Toussaint Tchitchi; Financing Quality Education and Teachers: Some Key Issues, presented by a joint team of ADEA Working Group Mr. Virgilio Juvane, Ms. Houraye Mamadou Anne and Mr. Shem Bodo.
The conference also witnessed the presentation of the experiences of three countries, Mali , Lesotho and Angola on factors and conditions for full integration of contractual teachers in civil service. On issues and new challenges, New Trends in Teacher Education was presented by a member of EI, Mr. Dennis Sinyolo, while Two Policy Frameworks-Teacher Development and Career Development was presented by a member of the Dakar Group, Mr. Alioune Danfa.
On new opportunities, Potentials of ICTs for Teacher Education and Development was presented by Papa Youga Dieng; Teacher Management Issues: Deployment and Utilistion of Teachers, by Mr. Shem Bodo; The impact of HIV and AIDS on Teachers: National Responses to Prevent and Mitigate Impact, by Peter Bedcock-Walters, among others.
There were also breakout sessions where issues on teacher recruitment and redeployment, in-service training, continuous teacher professional development, employment conditions and resource mobilisation, HIV and AIDS, among others were discussed.
At the end of the extensive deliberations, the conference reaffirmed its commitment to the 2004 Bamako Consensus and emphasised that education was a fundamental human right and an investment that empowers individuals with knowledge, values and skills required to make choices, shape their future and meet the needs of social and economic development. It acknowledged the commitment of African Union heads of state and government to the second decade of Education for Africa and the prioritisation of teacher education to ensure the provision of sufficient and properly qualified teachers with the relevant knowledge, skills and attitude to teach effectively.
While affirming that teachers are at the core of education delivery and that universal access to quality basic education and better learning outcomes were drivers to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and EFA targets, the conference said the use of contractual teachers was a short term emergency measure. It said the option might entail risks for quality of learning and teaching, especially if teachers did not acquire any pre-service training.
It stressed that quality education could not be provided to the learners without an adequate stock of qualified and competent teachers, both male and female, that are properly deployed, well remunerated and motivated, as well as adequately supported, adding that teaching was a profession and required sufficient initial professional preparation.
It also acknowledged that tens of millions of African children are out of the formal school system and are only accessing education through non-formal structures, which use thousands of poorly trained teachers with precarious working conditions.
The conference therefore recommended that the recruitment of untrained teachers be gradually phased out by 2015 and that all categories of teachers serving in formal and non-formal settings, as well as in different sub-sectors of education be recognised and supported in their professional and career development. It also suggested that teacher training and professional development be set within a global vision that integrates life-long learning.
To achieve these, it called on national governments to accelerate the training and integration of contractual teachers into public service; formulate policies and strategies that would ensure that all new teachers receive sufficient pre-service training; increase the national capacity for training sufficient number of teachers and strengthen the capacity of existing teacher training institutions; develop innovative and complementary ways of providing pre-service training and continuous professional development, which include the use of ICTs and open and distance learning.
Other recommended actions by national governments included: Mainstream life skills, including HIV and AIDS prevention and mitigation into teacher training and development programmes; develop teacher qualifications frameworks among countries based on minimum criteria and explore the possibility of creating joint teacher training programmes; reinforce school leadership through systematic training to support school improvement; review, develop and adhere strictly to criteria for training, recruitment and professional development of teachers; set up transparent recruitment mechanisms based on agreed criteria both at the central and decentralised levels; promote national policy dialogue among all stakeholders in order to ensure that the minimum budgetary allocation to education as a sector is no less than 20 percent of the national budget. The conference also called for an education management information systems that would generate reliable data to facilitate effective planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of education programmes, including pre and in-service training, continuing professional development and other teacher management issues, as well as establish networks of both teacher training institutions and individual teachers at national, regional and international levels, as well as to facilitate teacher mobility to promote exchange of information and sharing of experience.
The conference also called on ADEA and partners to support countries to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate training and upgrading programmes for contractual teachers using, among others, the two policy frameworks proposed by ADEA on training and professional development of contractual teachers and career tracks, opportunities for advancement, social protection guarantees and rights and obligations of contractual teachers and; to set up partnership frameworks for supporting advocacy and capacity building activities in different countries in order to professionalise the teaching force for the achievement of EFA and MDGs.
Participants at the conference were made up of ministers and delegations from 22 African countries: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Others are Republic of Congo, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
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