TSC starts moving teachers from Wajir to their home areas

Some of the teachers who have since received letters of transfer from Wajir County to their home regions. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • By the end of Wednesday, the commission had issued letters to 76 teachers who were teaching in areas considered to be dangerous in Wajir.

  • Non-local teachers in the border county has borne the brunt of attacks on schools by rag-tag Al-Shabaab militia from Somalia.

  • Two were killed on the morning on February 16, alongside the wife of one of them, when the militants attacked Qarsa Primary School.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has started transferring non-local teachers from Wajir County to their home areas.

By the end of Wednesday, the commission had issued letters to 76 teachers who were teaching in areas considered to be dangerous in the county that borders Somalia to the east.

MANDERA

Non-local teachers in the border county have borne the brunt of attacks on schools by rag-tag Al-Shabaab militia from Somalia.

Two were killed on the morning on February 16, alongside the wife of one of them, when the militants attacked Qarsa Primary School.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Wajir branch secretary Noor Bardad, who has condemned the transfers, on Thursday told the Nation that more teachers were set to receive letters.

Mr Bardad said they had also received reliable reports that TSC was planning to transfer non-local teachers from insecure areas of Mandera and Garissa counties.

He faulted the TSC decision, saying Knut had made efforts to ensure teachers working in violence hotspots in Wajir are transferred to safer parts of the county.

54 TEACHERS

The transfers, he said, were likely to paralyse education in Wajir, which has suffered three terrorist attacks since January.

He said Knut had helped transfer 54 teachers from insecure parts of the county to urban areas, which have a higher police presence.

Those moved include 18 from Wajir East, which has affected six schools; 13 teachers in Wajir South, affecting four schools while in Habaswein, 15 teachers have been transferred, affecting seven schools.

“We are shocked that TSC is now transferring them out of the county,” he said.

“As a union … we are not going to allow that since the move will totally paralyse education services in the county, which largely depends on non-local teachers.”

The transfers have since affected a total of 21 schools, according to the Knut official.

UNSAFE

Over 60 percent of teachers in the county, Mr Bardad said, are non-locals and their withdrawal means denying school-going children their right to education.

He gave an example of Kutulo area, which hosts three schools— Kutulo Primary, Kutulo Girls Secondary and Kutulo Girls Primary.

The area has only five local teachers and it mainly depends on 18 non-locals who had been posted by TSC.

Some of the schools considered to be in danger zones include Qajaja 1 and Qajaja 2 in Tarbaj Sub-County, and Qarsa, Riba, Khorof Kharar and Wajir Bor primary schools in Wajir East.

In Habaswein Sub-County, Dadajabula, Geetwab and Baron primary schools are considered to be insecure while unsafe schools in Wajir South include Salalma, Diff, Hambalash and Gherille.