Ministry orders fresh audit of teachers to identify extent of shortage

• Move aimed at easing crowded classes and ending row on hiring graduates as interns

The Ministry of Education has ordered a fresh audit into the number of teachers in the country to identify the extent of staff shortage.

Educationists have seen this move as the first step towards sorting out the biting teacher shortage, and ending the row on hiring intern teachers.

Education PS Karega Mutahi on Thursday said he had instructed all provincial and district directors of education to carry out the audit.

“The audit will be done as soon as the schools open to establish which schools have severe shortages,” he said.

This report will then be forwarded to the ministry, which will prepare for recruitment later in the month.

But the umbrella teachers’ union on Thursday claimed the ministry intended to hire intern teachers before the case in court was withdrawn.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers said it had received unconfirmed reports from its grassroots that headteachers had been instructed by the ministry to open bank accounts for the interns’ salaries.

“These are disturbing reports,” Knut secretary-general Lawrence Majali said at a Press conference.

However, Prof Mutahi dismissed the allegations and said the matter was in court and there was no way they could proceed without legal directions.

“Knut is confusing the instructions to carry out the audit of the staff shortage with the hiring,” he said. “Let me make it clear that it has nothing to do with the hiring of teachers; the matter is in court.”

He added: “Other instructions issued are to provide accounts for tree-planting and infrastructure development under the economic stimulus plan.”

Head of secondary school principals Cleophas Tirop also said that he had not received any instructions on the hiring of interns.

The High Court is expected to give directions on the matter in which the government intended to hire 12,600 intern teachers next week.

Yesterday, Knut said it was still ready to drop the case if the Sh1.6 billion allocated for the process was transferred to the Teachers Service Commission to employ a few, but permanent teachers.

During Knut’s annual delegates meeting in Nairobi last year, Prime Minister Raila Odinga asked the teachers to drop the case as Treasury had frozen the Sh1.6 billion until the case was resolved.

Special meeting

But Majali said a special meeting to strike the deal failed to take off after Mr Odinga went out of the country on official duty.

The meeting where the case was to be dropped was scheduled for December 17, and was to be attended by Mr Odinga, Education minister Sam Ongeri, PS Mutahi, TSC boss Gabriel Lengoiboni and Knut officials.

“This approach would have been easier to sort out the problem, and hire the number of teachers permanently.”

Mid-last year, TSC had released a similar staff shortage report, where it had indicated that over 60,000 teachers were required.

For the last eight years, the government has been recruiting teachers on permanent and pensionable basis.

At least 8,000 teachers are hired to replace those who have left the service for greener pastures, or through natural attrition.

In Marakwet East District, nearly 15 primary schools on the edge of Embobut Forest, where squatters were evicted, have recorded poor performance in last year’s KCPE results.

Some of the candidates registered for the test did not even sit the exam.

An education official in the area, Mr Moses Chemongw’o, attributed the poor performance to the evictions that destabilised families in the district, early marriages and circumcision.

Early marriages

“Apart from the evictions, early marriages and both male and female circumcision contributed to the discouraging performance,” the official said.
In Mung’wa primary school, the top candidate scored 290 marks while the last scored 113.

The situation was not different in Maron, Kilangata and Kabar primary schools where some  candidates failed to turn up for the examination.

Speaking to the Nation in his Kapsowar Town office yesterday, Mr Chemong’wo said that at least 30 candidates from the Embobut and Embolot locations did not sit for the examination.

A total of 4,768 candidates sat for the examination in the larger Marakwet District. This comprised 2,505 boys and 2,263 girls.

However, teachers in the affected schools said the results were an improvement compared to previous years.