Enact Teaching Profession Bill into law to bring sanity in education sector

By Daily Revelation Editor

Last week, Cabinet approved the teaching profession bill of 2025, which is aimed at introducing licensure exams for newly trained teachers.

The bill is aimed at improving the quality of education across the country by ensuring that only competent and qualified individuals are admitted into the profession.

Chief government spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa, during a briefing said the licensure exam would assess the knowledge, skills and professional competencies of newly trained teachers and ensure that only the best educators make it to classrooms and impact the learning outcomes of pupils.

The move has been welcomed by various scholars and stakeholders in the education sector who feel that it will help to address some of the challenges that come with poorly trained teachers or unqualified teachers.

We join all those that have welcomed this bill as it is a decision in the right direction and will help address lacunas currently being faced in the education sector.

Given the significant increase in the number of private universities, colleges, including teacher training institutions, we need concerted efforts in uplifting the standards of education, especially as teachers are trainers of trainers.

Some teachers being trained have presented several weaknesses which if not addressed can affect learners. We feel the introduction of the bill is a good move and will be able to address a lot of issues in the sector.

It has been observed that some teachers especially those trained by some private training schools across the country have shown some weaknesses among them inadequate skills and effective teaching methods, and this has negatively affected students’ learning outcomes and academic performance.

Unqualified teachers in some cases have failed to understand students and manage their behavior, they have failed to deliver quality lessons and failed to conduct themselves professionally at a personal level, among pupils and their peers.

Some of them are unable to write proper lesson plans that will enable them to deliver quality lessons to learners.

In some cases, we have seen or read about teachers betraying the learners trust by abusing them sexually or turning them into wives in the case of girls at a tender age, which is not supposed to be the case.

Learners must feel safe with their teachers as they are entrusted with the responsibility of looking after them just like parents and guardians. This is not the case anymore for some teachers.

There is also a lack of passion for the profession as many get into it because there are more opportunities for job placement when compared to other professions, without having the necessary passion for the career path they are venturing into. These are some of the challenges we have noted among the teachers which we feel the enactment of the bill into law should be able to address.

We are confident that the introduction of licensure exams will serve as gate keeper towards ensuring that individuals joining the teaching profession meet the minimum standards of competence and knowledge and professionalism.

It will bring about order, credibility and respect that the teaching profession has enjoyed in the past.

We are therefore, urging citizens, stakeholders and members of parliament to support this bill when it’s taken to Parliament so that it can be enacted into law.