70 teachers who fled N Eastern terror moved to Kilifi schools

KILIFI: Seventy primary and secondary school teachers who fled Garissa and North Eastern over insecurity have been transferred to Kilifi County.

The teachers had declined to go back to the region following the April 2 terrorist attack at Garissa University College where about 147 students lost their lives.

They hail from different parts of Kenya and officials say they were deployed to Kilifi at the start of this term, which has been interrupted by a crippling teachers’ strike over a pay dispute.

This group is among about 1,000 others who fled North Eastern after the rise of terrorism.

They also claimed they had been subjected to racist xenophobia and religious victimisation by local tribal chauvinists.

The State suspended and then declined to pay their salaries but was compelled to do so and reinstate them leading to the ongoing redeployment.

A senior officer of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) in Kilifi County confirmed the relocation of the 70 public school teachers to this area.

David Ogutu said out of the 70 teachers, 30 were secondary schools teaching personnel while the rest were from primary schools.

The officer said the teachers officially received transfer letters from TSC Nairobi before they were deployed to the county public schools.

ATTACKS

“It’s true that 70 of the teachers who fled from North Eastern region where they were teaching, for fear of being attacked and killed by members of the Al Shabbab terror group, were deployed to our Kilifi County schools,” said Mr Ogutu.

Speaking at Makuti Villa during a forum to launch a learning and education assessment report for Kilifi conducted by Uwezo Kenya at the weekend said the deployed teachers will address the acute shortage of teachers in the county.

"Kilifi County schools are facing an acute shortage of teachers as currently they require about 2,000 more teachers, with primary schools being the most hit,” said Ogutu.

SERIOUS PROBLEM

Kilifi Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Executive Secretary Patrick Rasi said the shortage of teachers was a serious problem that needed to be urgently addressed.

Mr Rasi said the shortage of teachers affected the area’s good performance and challenged TSC to ensure more teachers area deployed in the region.

The Knut official said the number of teachers relocated to Kilifi schools was a drop in the ocean and urged TSC to look for a lasting solution to the problem.

Ogutu further raised concern that teachers were absconding duty while others skipped classes.

He said investigations by his office had shown that teachers had been boycotting duty while others attended school but failed to report to classes.