House team wants government to hire 25,000 more teachers

NAIROBI: A parliamentary committee wants the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to hire 25,000 teachers in the next financial year.

The National Assembly's Education Committee said TSC will need an additional Sh2.3 billion to boost the number of teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.

TSC had a target of 20,000 teachers, but MPs in the committee, told the Budget and Appropriations Committee that an extra 5,000 teachers were needed to bring the total to 25,000. TSC recruited 25,000 teachers in the last financial year.

The Education Committee also asked the National Treasury to look for Sh2.2 billion more for the promotion of teachers.

TSC, in its submission for the budget for the financial year 2015-16 wants to recruit 10,000 teachers for primary schools, 9,159 for secondary schools and 841 for the tertiary institutions in the next financial year.

A report of the Budget and Appropriations Committee which was tabled yesterday said the public had asked the Government to allocate more funds to TSC to enable hire more teachers.

"The public expressed concern that public primary schools do not have enough teachers and are not fully equipped with books. As a result the performance in public schools is deteriorating," the report said.

The teachers' employer also plans to transfer 2,000 teachers in the primary schools and 1,500 in secondary schools "to achieve equity".

The problem has been that while some schools have a teacher shortage others are overstaffed.

"They were posted to extremely needy schools to address the problem of teacher shortage and for the immediate replacement of retiring teachers," said TSC in the brief to the National Treasury.

University of Nairobi staff also won big in the budget request as they managed to get Sh1 billion for the collective bargaining agreement, meaning they will get some increase in their pay and perks.

There was also a renewed push for the Budget and Appropriations Committee to push the National Treasury to pay retired teachers their dues amounting to Sh16.6 billion.