85,000 tutors needed to ease shortage
What you need to know:
- “If this serious teacher shortage is allowed to go on, we are creating a class society and fuelling a time bomb whose consequences we will live to regret,” Mr Sossion said.
The education sector requires about 85,000 additional teachers to address shortage in public primary and secondary schools.
Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni, however said the commission would ask for fewer teachers if the guidelines on management of schools, which call for rationalisation are adhered to fully.
Mr Lengoiboni was speaking at Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi yesterday during public sector hearings on budget proposals by different ministries for the 2015-2018 period.
The commission had, on many occasions, cited lack of enough funds for its inability to hire more teachers. Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) boss Wilson Sossion recently asked the government to employ 40,000 teachers next financial year and 20,000 later to ease shortage.
“If this serious teacher shortage is allowed to go on, we are creating a class society and fuelling a time bomb whose consequences we will live to regret,” Mr Sossion said.
The Kenya Economic Report 2014 shows that thirteen per cent of teachers in the country do not report to school. In September, the government employed 10,339 teachers - 7,142 for primary schools and the remaining 3,197 for post-primary institutions.
Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang’ last month called for the merger of neighbouring day schools unable to raise between 35 and 45 students.
