State to hire 5,000 teachers in coming fiscal year

BOMET, KENYA: The Teachers Service Commission will hire 5,000 teachers in the next financial years to address the current shortage in public schools.

The announcement, has however, elicited an angry reaction from the Kenya National Union of Teachers that claims the number is only a fraction of what the Government had promised to recruit.

TSC Secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni said only Sh2.25 had been allocated for the exercise in the 2011/2015 financial year by Treasury.

“We have a deficit of over Sh6 billion but we will make do with what we have,” said Lengoiboni .

Lengoiboni  said the commission has forwarded the staffing records to the Cabinet Secretary for onward transmission to the Cabinet.

Knut dismissed the number as a drop in the ocean and accused Treasury of under-funding the commission.

Speaking yesterday in Koibeyon Secondary School in Bomet County during the institution’s prize-giving day, Knut Secretary General Wilson Sossion warned that teachers will down their tools if Treasury fails to allocate more funds to address the teacher shortfall in public schools.

“TSC must be sufficiently funded if it is to execute its mandate of hiring and remunerating the teachers of this nation. As a union, we want to issue our warning to Treasury that failure to give enough funds to the commission will see us call for an industrial action,” said Sossion, who said the Government had gone against its promise of hiring 20,000 teachers every year for the next four years.

The Knut boss also threatened to call a strike if the Government does not pay the last phase of responsibility and commuter allowance.

 While submitting their submission on the 2014/2015 national education sector budget in May, Knut had asked the Government to set aside Sh30.2 billion for recruitment and promotion of teachers in 2014/2015 financial year.

leave allowances

The union said the amount would be used to recruit an additional 40,000 primary and post primary teachers as well 24,000 Early Childhood and Development Education (ECDE) teachers.

The rest of the funds, according to the union’s proposals, was to be used to promote teachers and pay leave allowances.

“The current teacher shortage stands at over 100,000 teachers. Knut proposes a one-off recruitment of 40,000 teachers to ease on the biting shortage. This will cost Sh18 billion and Sh4.8 billion for ECDE teachers,” said Sossion.

Sossion said the current enrolment in all ECDE schools stands at over three million children and the institutions require 70,000 teachers.

“Knut proposes the recruitment of 25,000 teachers this fiscal year by the TSC as provided for in section 237 of the Constitution,” submitted the unionist.

Sossion said teachers who merited promotions should be upgraded as per the existing schemes of service, adding that the Government should set aside Sh6 billion for such promotions.

“Leave is a right for every worker in the Labour Relations Act and thus we have proposed that Sh1.4 billion be factored for all the 288,103 teachers in this financial year so that they are not denied this critical right,” said Sossion.

Meanwhile, two Members of Parliament from Bomet County and a unionist have reacted angrily to reports that the Government has shelved plans to recruit 20,000 teachers due to under-funding.

Ronald Tonui (Bomet Central), Bernard Bett (Bomet East) and Bomet Knut Executive Secretary Malel Langat said the Government should demonstrate its commitment to provision of quality education by hiring more teachers to address the biting shortage in public schools.

They proposed that funds that have been allocated to non-priority areas by Treasury be channeled to the Ministry of Education.

“The Government should not allow wastage in certain ministries while there are no teachers in our schools. Treasury should reduce allocations to those ministries that have been returning unutilised funds,” said Tonui.