Setting I 85
trainees were admitted with a mInumum qualification of completion of
Grade б schooling themselves, for a 1 year course. From 1983, according
to the SIE, trainees with the same entry qualifications will stay on the
training course for 3 years, during which they will also acquire higher
academic qualifications. Eventually, trainees will be admitted only if
they have finished grade 10 (JLE.C.,1981).
The Centres are located in all the provinces and have a local intake.
They also function in difficult logistic conditions and with shortage of
materials and qualified trainers. According to an independent study,
teaching methods in the Centres themselves are generally authoritarian
and dogmatic, with little time devoted to teaching practice, and the
Centres fail to educate teachers to be agents of transformation in the
rural areas <Centro de Estudos AfricanostIQQi).
The low academic qualifications of both untrained and trained teachers
are in themselves a severe limitation on any development; mastery of
Portuguese is often inadequate, and literature consists in notes taken
during workshops or courses.
Teaching is not a prestigious profession: trainees are often placed in
Teacher education courses against their will (as many would prefer to
continue academic courses), pay is low and conditions of work,
accommodation and amenities in the rural areas very off-putting;
prospects of higher training or promotion are subordinate to higher
academic qualifications unobtainable outside towns. A programme of
distance teaching for rural teachers, in preparation, should improve some
of these conditions. Upon completion of courses, teachers are assigned to
schools according to a central planning system.
In both primary schools and Teachers1 Centres, the problem for the
teachers seem to be basically the same: low qualification / training /
motivation and scarcity of resources lead easily to a non-creative
teacher-centred approach to learning.