The union’s Secretary General Wilson Sossion on Thursday said it’s unfair to have children out of school for lack of teachers following their transfers over insecurity in the area/SAM WANJOHI
NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 26 – The Kenya National Union of Teachers wants the Northern Kenya region to be assisted to train and recruit its own teachers.
The union’s Secretary General Wilson Sossion on Thursday said it’s unfair to have children out of school for lack of teachers following their transfers over insecurity in the area.
“Northern Kenya has a community, it has children who must be taught and also has children who should have been made teachers. The UNESCO/ILO standards requires that every community must be assisted to train their own teachers,” he stressed.
Sossion said it is unfortunate that after 50 years, Northern Kenya still doesn’t have enough trained and qualified teachers who could be hired from the region.
Sossion said the norm of teacher deployment was that they should be trained and deployed to their community.
He further said that the union has made recommendations to the Ministry of Education to lower cut off points for teachers joining training colleges from Northeastern.
“We have written to CS Amina Mohamed to reduce the cut off entry points for teacher trainees from the region to grade D+ but we are happy with the Kenya qualification framework which has indicated the cut of points for this region as grade D Plain,” he said.
Sossion’s call comes after the mass exodus of teachers that was witnessed early this year after Teachers Service Commission (TSC) transferred non-local teachers who felt unsafe in the area.
Sossion further called upon the TSC to halt the ongoing delocalization of teachers saying the move is disruptive and amounts to intimidation.
He faulted the TSC for implementing the delocalization policy without doing consultations with the Union and key stakeholders.
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