Education sector faces Sh19.8b deficit to effect teachers’ pay increment

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang

NAIROBI: The Ministry of Education is facing a deficit of Sh19.8 billion, a situation that will adversely affect recruitment, promotion and remuneration of teachers in the next financial year.

The annual free education capitation for schools per child, funding of public universities and disbursement of student loans and bursaries will also be affected if more money is not allocated.

Also to be disrupted is purchase of free sanitary towels for needy girls, the school feeding programme and grants to special needs schools.

The grim details are contained in the Education Sector Report, 2014, seen by The Standard.

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang said the total resource requirement for the next financial year is Sh344 billion and notes that the gross ceiling for the sector was set at just about Sh324 billion.

"The sector resource deficit is significant and stands at Sh19.8 billion. The deficit will impact negatively on teachers' promotions, financing of existing and newly created universities, university colleges and curriculum review," he said.

The hope for pay increase for teachers remains bleak in the next two years as it is still uncertain if the Government will adjust their salaries by January even as the two teachers unions have threatened to paralyse learning when schools open in January.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) have notified the Government of an impending strike starting January.

The unions said all the over 288,000 teachers' basic salaries must be increased under a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), in addition to a raft of other allowances.

But the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) advised against a secret Sh50 billion offer to teachers, saying it does not take into consideration economic growth, inflation trends and sustainability.

Knut also wants some 53,000 teachers promoted and a special scheme of service for post-graduate teachers introduced.

The report presented to stakeholders review on Tuesday, however, says that over 118,294 teachers who merit promotion have stagnated in one job group for at least five years because of funding deficit.

Of the 98,528 teachers in job group G, some 60,146 teachers have not been promoted in the last five years. And only 10,000 teachers of the 30,877 who fall under job group H have been promoted.

This pattern of backlog in promotions is replicated in job groups L, M, N P, Q and R, according to the report.

The 275-page document also says that Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is unable to promote some 102,658 teachers who currently merit elevation.

The document attributes the funding deficit to rapidly expansion of education sector at all levels.

"The sector made progress towards enhancing access, quality, retention, completion and gender parity as well as ensuring adequate supply of qualified teachers and other human resources required for the support of competitive education, research and innovation," reads the report.

Dr Kipsang said the sector requires enhanced budgetary allocations.

"Teacher shortages have been widespread as a result of increased enrollment arising from Free Primary Education (FPE) and Free Day Secondary Education (FDSE) and other Government initiative. This is likely to impact negatively on the quality of education," reads the report.

The current teacher gap stands at 90,230, according to the report. Of these, 44,732 are primary teachers and another 45,498 for secondary schools. The report projects a teacher shortage of 113,664 by 2017.

The just concluded Knut Annual Delegates Conference (ADC) resolved that the Government must employ 40,000 new teachers in the next financial year.

MORE TEACHERS

The union also said that another 20,000 additional teachers must be employed annually to check the growing deficit.

Enrollment in primary schools has increased to 10.1 million pupils last year, up from 8.8 million in 2011. There are some 2.1 million students in public secondary today up from 1.9 million in 2012.

Kipsang said procurement of sanitary towels to keep needy girls in schools will also be affected.

The PS said ministry doubled funding of sanitary towels to Sh400 million this financial year.

He also said that the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) projection of increasing allocations to 50,000 per student would not be realised because of the funding gap.

The document shows that the number of students receiving loans increased from 105,850 in 2011/12 to 144,785 in 2013/14.

Also, the number of postgraduate students receiving loans increased from 2,132 in 2011/12 to 3,191 in 2013/14.

"The total amount disbursed for postgraduate loans also increased from Sh234 million in 2011/12 to Sh401 million in 2013/14," reads the report.