Kenya set to hire teachers on contract

The stage is finally set for Kenya's first-ever recruitment of teachers for public schools on contract terms.

In a paid-up advert to appear in the Sunday Nation tomorrow, Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has outlined an elaborate procedure for the process.

Some 18,000 teachers will be hired through the district education boards and will serve on contract terms for a period of three years.

Out of those, 13,860 will be posted to primary schools while 4,200 will join various secondary schools and teacher training colleges countrywide.

In each of the 210 constituencies, 66 teachers will be recruited for primary and 20 teachers for the secondary schools.

Although they will be required to carry out the same duties as their permanent colleagues, they will take home less than what TSC pays the latter.

A primary school teacher will be paid Sh10,000 while those in secondary schools Sh14,000 for the period they will be serving on contract.

Already Sh2 billion has been set aside for the process that was engineered by the Treasury under the Economic Stimulus Plan.

Usually, permanent teachers at entry level takes home Sh17,000 and Sh26,000 for primary and secondary schools respectively.

This remuneration is subject to increase over time for the next two years following a successful collective bargaining agreement with their unions.

But under the new plan to be rolled out in the course of this week, the contract teachers will not be allowed to join unions.

Education minister Sam Ongeri last week said the teachers will be absorbed as permanent employees when their contracts are due.

The plan to hire on contract terms was contested at the High Court by the Kenya National Union Of Teachers last year, as they argued teachers could only be hired on permanent terms only as provided for by the TSC Act.

The High Court granted the orders to halt the process until two weeks ago when the union settled the matter out-of-court with the government.

Prof Ongeri has signalled that hiring teachers on contracts may become the trend until the current shortage of more 60,000 teachers is contained.

International standards recommend that one teacher should serve at least 40 pupils but the situation in Kenya has seen a teacher crowded with nearly double the number in a classroom.

The situation has been complicated by the advent of the free primary education and subsidised secondary education whose result has been an upward spiral of student population in the schools.

Currently, 8.4 million pupils in primary and 1.4 others in secondary are taught by only 240,000 teachers.

This has had adverse effects on the quality of educational experience the children get, with the rich parents opting to send their children to the private schools.