Ongeri under fire over teacher shortage

Education Minister Sam Ongeri was on Thursday hard-pressed in Parliament to explain the huge shortage of teachers in the country.

The MPs were angry that a court injuction barring the government from hiring of 12,500 teachers on contract –as proposed in this year’s budget—was affecting the education standards in public schools in each of the 210 constituencies.

Prof Ongeri acknowledged that there was a shortage of 65,000 teachers, 42,000 in secondary schools and 23,000 in primary schools.

MPs among them Public Accounts Committee chairman Bonny Khalwale (Ikolomani, New Ford Kenya) told off the minister saying “the figures on the ground are double that.”

But the minister replied: “The Teachers Service Commission works on the numbers based on the enrolment figures and these are the facts… we can’t just pick rumours from the air.”

The minister said he’ll be meeting top TSC officials on Friday with a view to hiring more teachers on permanent and pensionable basis.

However, he did not disclose how many teachers will be enrolled into the TSC in the recruitment exercise set to kick off next week.

The chairman of parliament’s committee on Education, Mr David Koech (Mosop, ODM), reckoned that no money had been set aside for the said hiring in the current budget.

But the minister replied that the funds will be factored in the Supplementary Budget once the number is confirmed after Friday’s meeting.

Mr Isaac Ruto (Chepalungu, ODM) sought to know if the money set aside in the Economic Stimulus Package would be diverted to this new exercise.

“You passed the Budget and now it is an Act of Parliament. I’ve no extra powers to change the intended use of the money, because doing so will raise audit queries,” said Prof Ongeri. “In terms of the law, my hands are tied up.”

The minister said the Kenya National Union of Teachers and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers “misunderstood”  the rationale between employing teachers on contract hence the court case.

The long-drawn debate in the House over teacher shortage saw Mr Ababu Namwamba (Budalang’i, ODM) upbraid the ministry for lacking a policy on replacing teachers.

Mr Namwamba accused the ministry of applying knee-jerk reactions on the crucial issue of teacher recruitment.

Prof Ongeri concurred: “This cannot continue being done on ad-hoc basis… we have no intention of perpetuating this crisis beyond what we can bear.”