New plan to hire more teachers

The Kenyan government plans to hire 28,000 teachers by 2012 to reduce shortage in schools.

Six thousand were recruited last year, alongside 8,000 put on the payroll to replace those who left the service through natural attrition.

Education permanent secretary Karega Mutahi on Tuesday said there was an increased demand for teacher employment to ensure ratios were within “acceptable international standards”. The PS was addressing donors at the Kenya Institute of Education in Nairobi.

Although Prof Mutahi did not give details, a report obtained by the Nation shows that 21,400 of the new teachers will be posted to primary schools while the rest will go to post-primary institutions.

Some 6,000 will be recruited each year under the programme, while the remaining 4,000 will be hired in the 2012/2013 financial year, according to the government’s Human Resource Development Sector Report 2009.

The report reads: “In addition to teachers being recruited to replace those who exit through natural attrition, an additional 28,000 teachers will be recruited during the period (2008-2012).”

It means that the government will nearly have addressed the shortage of teachers by 2012. While releasing Form Four examination results last week, Education minister Sam Ongeri said there was a shortage of 49,000 teachers, which would be addressed in the next three years.

According to the report, the planned internship programme of 16,000 teachers will further help address the teachers shortage. The programme was approved by the Cabinet late last year although the recruitment is yet to start.

The report says that the Teachers Service Commission plans to implement cost-effective staffing measures in schools.

In the new measures, the workload for teachers in high potential areas will go up, allowing each teacher to handle 45 pupils per class while that of arid and semi-arid areas will go up to 25:1 in primary schools. The average teaching load for secondary school staff will go up by two lessons — from 18 to 20 per week.

Additionally, teachers handling optional subjects, for which supply of teachers exceeds demand, will be retrained so they can teach other subjects. Alternatively, they could be deployed to primary schools to reduce existing shortages.

Under the reform measures, it will be possible for neighbouring schools to share teachers. The TSC will also set a lower limit on the class size in optional subjects.

The report recommends that teachers performing non-teaching duties should be absorbed in their current stations or “be deployed to perform teaching duties”.

Increased enrolment

“Teacher shortage at public primary schools, coupled with increase in enrolment has resulted in high pupil-teacher ratios in some schools thus negatively impacting on quality,” it said.

Currently, the shortage is 49,889, the majority — 36,496 — needed in primary schools. The national pupil teacher-ratio stands at 44.1 and is worse in urban slum and rural arid and semi-arid areas.

The problem, says the report, has been compounded by mushrooming of unplanned and non-viable schools built through funds such as the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).