Minister of General Education Deng Deng Hoc | photo | Juba Monitor

The former Minister of General Education and Instruction says a big number of the current teaching workforce on government payroll is incapable to deliver and should be sent away.

Deng Deng Hoc said the ministry is relying on less skilled personnel as the majority of teachers have not attained university degrees.

According to him, 24,694 government-employed teachers are either low-qualified or totally unqualified and must be replaced.

“We are relying on people with low skills, low qualifications or no qualifications and this needs to be shifted,” said Deng Hoc, who was the education minister for five years.

“We need to invest in teachers with bachelor’s degrees as a minimum such that we address the imbalance in the workforce,” he added

However, Eye Radio could not independently verify the claims – and the former education minister did not provide reference to the statistics.

Deng suggested that the primary and secondary school officials be paid redundancy arrears to go and do businesses – before the government recruits qualified staff.

“Twenty-four thousand six hundred and ninety-six need to get out of the education system and go somewhere,” he said during the ongoing education conference in Juba.

“That somewhere can be another government institution, or they can be given what they call redundancy payment and they go somewhere and do business”.

According to the Institute of Development Studies, teachers in South Sudan remain poorly and irregularly paid – leading to qualified teachers deserting for better-paying jobs.

This has resulted in schools hiring primary and secondary school leavers with limited proficiency in English – the language of instruction.

Teachers have also been complaining of low payment and poor working conditions.