Teacher at Kazo Primary School in Kamonyi district shows a student what she should have done during school quiz. Some of her colleagues(precisely 700 according to labour service commission) do not have required documents
The National Public Service Commission says 700 public and government aided teachers from 6 districts of the country teach without employee files or personnel records,
The file normally contains all relevant information about an employee including Curriculum Vitae, academic documents, contract, application letter, among others.
They are from various public schools located in Nyanza and Huye, Southern province and Rulindo district, Northern Province.
Others were discovered in Rubavu, Western province, Ngoma in Eastern Province and Nyarugenge in Kigali.
They were discovered in an inspection conducted by National public service commission (NPSC) that started in the 2019/2020 academic year, to analyze compliance of teacher’s recruitment procedures as required by the teacher’s statute of the Official Gazette n° 10 of 16/03/2020.
According to NPSC, all the inspected districts have a total of 11795 teachers and out of them, 700 do not have job documents.
The biggest number of teachers who lack employee files were discovered in Rulindo district with 522 teachers.
Apart from employee file issues, the NPSC indicated that 1153 teachers were not promoted in the horizontal promotions as required by the teacher’s statute also in Official Gazette n° 10 of 16/03/2020. Those who were promoted, 110 but were not given promotional letters.
The non-compliance in teachers’ recruitment procedures was presented to parliament by NPSC last week on Thursday.
The legislators said the unprofessional mechanism applied by recruiters is likely to compromise the quality of education in the country.
“The quality of education will be compromised. It also affects the government budget, I don’t understand how the districts even pay teachers without employee files,” Emmanuel Ndoriyobijya, a member of parliament said.
“NPSC should explain why these teachers work without documents, how we should trust they even studied or trust what they teach.”
NPSC said that district officials in charge of the teacher’s affairs indicated incompetence during recruitment process as required by the statute and asked Ministry of Education, High Education Council (HEC), Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB) and National Examination and School Inspection Authority (NESA) to follow up the issues.
Legal procedure for teachers’ recruitment
According to the Official Gazette n° 10 of 16/03/2020, before recruitment, each teacher is supposed to present all employee documents for filing, including a detailed curriculum vitae or CV, a photocopy of identity card or passport, a certified copy of degree or certificate, a passport photo in colour, a criminal record and medical certificate.
Teachers’ recruitment and appointment is jointly done by districts/city of Kigali, Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Service and Labour.
In the process of recruitment and appointment of teachers, the City of Kigali and the District have the following responsibilities: to make a list of all teaching positions and schools in the City of Kigali and the District, which need to be provided with teachers.
The districts and City of Kigali also maintains, for a period of twenty-four (24) months, a valid database of all successful candidates who are eligible for appointment and placement in case a vacant position is reported during that period.
The Ministry in charge of education publishes the announcement of vacant posts based on all teaching subjects in nursery, primary, secondary and TVET schools through the public service e-recruitment portal. According to the statute also, the announcement must contain the following details, job position title, requirements of the job position, closing date of submission of application file.
The Ministry in charge of Education shortlists and publishes the list of admitted candidates for examination and non-admitted and the reasons for non-eligibility. The list is published through the public service e-recruitment portal.
The shortlisted candidates are informed on the date, time and venue for the examination at least two (2) days before examination. Examination is conducted on a working day and during working hours, and only a written examination is taken.
“Most of these teachers were recruited several years ago; in 2000, others in 2005. At that time the districts needed teachers immediately and files were not created for them,” Denis Nuwayo, District Education Inspector (DEI) of Rulindo district explained.
“Another reason is that there is a new teacher’s statute (Official Gazette n° 10 of 16/03/2020) asking for various mandatory documents, these didn’t exist at that time and the officials recruited teachers without asking for these documents.”
Nuwayo said that his district is collecting the files without teachers having to stop their job now.
