By ALLY JAMAH
NAIROBI, KENYA: The fate of thousands of Early Childhood Education teachers being employed by County Governors appears to be uncertain as opposition continues to mount against the move.
The Parliamentary Committee on Education is pushing for amendments to the Basic Education Act to clarify that Governors have no role in employing teachers and that the mandate fully belongs to the Teachers Service Commission
Committee member Kisoi Munyao, who is also the Mbooni MP said that they will table amendments are meant to “make it absolutely clear” that the mandate of employing pre-primary teachers does not lie with Governors. He said the changes will be introduced once parliament resumes sessions next month.
“Governors have taken advantage of ambiguity in the law to begin employing the teachers, this move will seriously affect the quality of early childhood education since counties have not capacity to recruit and manage the teachers,” he said
He added: “Counties don’t have schemes of work as well as terms of service for the teachers. Governors just want political mileage from the employment of the teachers. Efforts to improve quality of pre-primary education are being hampered.”
According to the Act, County Governments, through the County Education Boards are to oversee the operation and management of among others pre-primary education including early childhood care and education programmes in the county.
But the legislator insists that “overseeing” does not include employment of teachers. He said that Article 237 of the constitution gives the mandate of employment of teachers to TSC.
Among the counties that have finalised the employment of ECDE teachers include Bungoma, Kisii, Bomet and Vihiga among others. Bungoma has hired 2000 tutors and offering them Sh10,000 monthly salary for diploma holders and Sh8,000 for certificate holders in a three-year contract.
Kisii is hiring 700 ECDE teachers while Bomet is expected to begin posting about 800 teachers recruited recently. Vihiga will begin posting its ECDE teachers next month with a salary of Sh10,000 a month while diploma and certificate holders will get Sh8,000 and Sh5,000 respectively.
Secretary General of the Kenya National Union of Teachers Wilson Sossion said the move by Governors to employ ECDE teachers is unconstitutional adding that the union is treating it as a temporary measure that will be addressed once TSC begin employing them
“When Governors are hiring teachers, to us it is not very different than when parents and schools were employing the same cadre of teachers. We don’t recognise it but we hope to mainstream their employment soon through TSC.”
He called on Treasury to allocate money needed for employment of ECDE teachers in the coming financial years saying ECDE has been ignored for long
“We need at least 70,000 pre-primary teachers who will serve more than 3.5 million children. Early childhood education has been neglected by the government for too long and that is totally unacceptable,” he said.
Since the passage of the constitution in 2010, pressure has been mounting on the government to allocate budgetary allocation to employ teachers, but until now the pressure has not borne fruit. ECDE teachers have been employed by individuals and are often paid very low salaries that vary from school to school.
