Moshi — KILIMANJARO Region is facing an acute shortage of 1,332 primary school teachers and 1,256 secondary school teachers, according the Regional Education Officer (REO), Ms Ruth Malisa.

She said currently there are 8,525 and 3,725 primary and secondary school teachers in the region, respectively, adding that early this week, some 248 new teachers who are certificate holders, have been assigned to take up teaching posts at Mwanga, Siha and Rombo district councils in a move to alleviate the shortage.

"I sincerely thank the government for the timely intervention to rescue the situation," she said, adding that the government has also assigned 344 teachers who are diploma holders and who are university graduates and 413 university graduates respectively to teach in several secondary schools in the region.

Ms Malisa urged local government authorities to accord the new teachers a hefty reception and have in place conducive working environment that will make them comfortable in their new working stations, lest they abscond as past records have showed.

Meanwhile, the REO has attributed poor academic performance during last year's national Form Four examination to shortage of teachers in governmentowned secondary schools, especially science subject teachers and poor infrastructure which force students to sit in crowded classrooms.

Inability of students to use the prevailing technology to access websites to download relevant information for the school subjects they have been pursuing, have also been identified as factors which culminated into massive failures in government owned secondary schools.

Instead students have overindulged themselves in downloading music and overseas football matches. Ms Malisa has advised parents and guardians to maintain good cooperation with teachers so as to follow up education development for their children. She has also requested the government to provide means of transport to school inspectors so that they could periodically visit schools lined up for inspection.