KISUMU, July 15 – The recruitment of 6,000 teachers to meet a shortfall of scholars has been described by an official as a ‘drop in the ocean’.
Tom Olilo, Secretary of the Nyanza Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) branch, Tuesday described the move by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to recruit 6,000 educators as not sufficient.
Olilo said that more than 60,000 teachers needed to be employed to bridge the shortage, which has been occasioned by the government sponsored free primary and secondary school education programmes.
Speaking to journalists in Kisumu, the Nyanza KNUT Secretary reaffirmed that the teacher-pupil ratio in most schools is very unbalanced and was hampering effective learning.
The TSC head Gabriel Lengoibon announced recently that the Commission would this week advertise vacancies for the 6,000 teachers, 4,000 of whom would be placed in primary schools, with the rest in secondary schools.
Olilo meanwhile has challenged the Health Ministry to speedily address the constant cases of cholera outbreaks in schools in Nyanza province.
The official said that the disease had claimed the lives of a number of pupils in the recent past and rendered several of them ill, disrupting their schooling.
He urged the Kisumu municipal council to step in and ban the hawking of cooked foods in schools located within the municipality, to curb the spread of the disease.
The latest casualty was a pupil at the Renja Primary School, who died from the disease at the Migosi health centre last week.
Cellilia Bufuoli, a clinical officer at the centre, said contaminated water is the main cause of the spread of the disease and appealed to parents to ensure they use boiled or treated water.
Mbeme Primary School was also affected, and four of its pupils were admitted to hospital, and later discharged.
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