Government to Sponsor Non-graduate Teachers for Degrees Courses

The Ministry of Education and Sports will offer free in-service programmes to enable teachers of lower qualifications to upgrade to the required degree level.

The new National Teacher Policy now requires that all teachers, right from nursery, to have at least a bachelor’s degree as their minimum education qualification.

This means lower qualifications from certificate to diploma are going to be phased out.

According to the ministry’s action plan, teachers with lower qualifications both in public and private schools who are willing to remain in service will have a period of ten years to meet the new standards.

Now, the state minister in charge of higher education Dr John Chrysestom Muyingo clarifies that although the government is phasing out the qualification, they are looking at ways of helping those holding them upgrade to the required standards.

Muyingo adds that one of the available options at the moment will be offering free in-service programmes. 

The in-service training for teachers was introduced in 1994 in a project dubbed Teacher Development Management Systems-TDMS, with the sole aim of supporting and enhancing the professional development of teachers. 

Through the project, teachers use holidays to go and upgrade their academic qualifications and keep at their duty stations during the term.

This allows them to train without acquiring study leaves or affecting the teaching-learning process at their respective schools.