Teacher crisis hurts primary education

What you need to know:

  • The government has failed to achieve the 1:45 teacher-pupil ratio.
  • A report released on Tuesday reveals massive inequalities in the distribution of teachers.

Education quality in basic schools is poor because the government is not hiring enough teachers, a new report has revealed.

The government has failed to achieve the 1:45 teacher-pupil ratio, resulting in falling educational standards as available teachers are overwhelmed.

The study by Concern Worldwide, an international NGO, says the current teacher-pupil ratio stands at 1:56, a proportion experts say is abnormally high. 

TEACHER DISTRIBUTION

The report released on Tuesday reveals massive inequalities in the distribution of teachers in public schools with schools in informal urban settlements remaining under-staffed.

“Pupils in slum areas are hugely disadvantaged when it comes to teacher distribution,” the report says.

A review of 31 public primary schools in Nairobi showed children from upmarket areas are highly favoured compared to those in the slums.

Data from four slums, Korogocho, Mathare, Mukuru and Kibera, revealed there were approximately 40,581 pupils and 652 teachers compared to the same number of public schools in Westlands, Karen and Nairobi West, which have 25,894 pupils and 635 teachers.

The government spends much more on learners from non-slum areas. Only Sh509 is spent on a pupil in a slum compared to Sh802 used on non-slum area pupils.

Following the introduction of free primary education in Kenya in 2003, enrolment has increased to 9,970,900.

However, his has not been met will the corresponding number of teachers.