“The teachers’ issue is very emotive. It is this committee that had actually asked the National Treasury to release Sh5 million for the recruitment of teachers and we are still asking again that we will be having problems with the Competency Based Curriculum if we don’t recruit teachers this financial year/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 17 – The National Assembly Education Committee is demanding that National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich releases Sh5 million allocated for recruitment for 10,000 teachers.
The committee chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly reprimanded Rotich over failure to release the funds to the Teachers Service Commission saying there is need for more teachers to be deployed in public schools as soon as possible so that pupils can have quality education.
“The teachers’ issue is very emotive. It is this committee that had actually asked the National Treasury to release Sh5 billion for the recruitment of teachers and we are still asking again that we will be having problems with the Competency Based Curriculum if we don’t recruit teachers this financial year. We are not going to back down on that we demand that 10,000 teachers be employed.”
MPs Wilson Sossion (Nominated MP), Abel Zadoc (Bomachoge-Borabu) and Eve Obara (Kabondo-Kasipul) warned that they had enough of Rotich’s promises as they raised alarm over a possible crisis in the education sector unless at least 70,000 teachers are hired to support the growing population in schools occasioned by the government’s 100 per cent transition policy.
“We are talking cases where primary schools with a population of 300 students have four teachers; so what happens to the other children when these four teachers are teaching. Does the ministry have a bare minimum so that we start with that?”
“Are there other schools that have a lot more (teachers) than other schools have in other regions?” posed Obara.
“When you design the curriculum it automatically creates the number of teachers and then it is the business of TSC to employ and deploy. TSC cannot determine,” Sossion (who is also the Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary General) asserted.
They were speaking during a special sitting held on Thursday with Ministry of Education officials led by Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed to deliberate on the uncertainties surrounding the roll out of the new curriculum, delocalization policy, status on the implementation of Collective Bargaining Agreements among other issues.
TSC needs for 57,380 teachers for secondary schools, noting that the number is exclusive of the shortage occasioned by the 100 percent transition.
Currently, there are 312,000 teachers in the country while 290,000 teachers are trained but are yet to be recruited by the government.
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