Relax tight entry grade for diploma teachers

Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha arrives in Kwale before handing over the certificate of full registration for Kwale Teachers Training College.[Omondi Onyango,Standard]

The government has pegged the entry mean grade for students seeking to join primary school Teacher Training Colleges (TTC) for the newly introduced diploma courses at C (plain). The students are also required to have C in English, Kiswahili, mathematics and any of the humanities and sciences subjects. 

The need to have qualified personnel instruct learners cannot be gainsaid, but this requirement, at some point, drew mixed reactions. Notably, teachers’ unions raised objections, claiming raising the bar too high would have a negative effect on TTCs.

Those concerns were vindicated after 3,000 students who had been selected for the P1 programme were turned away in 2019 for not having met the entry threshold. That resulted in severe shortage of trainees in TTCs. Today, tutors in more than 30 TTCs have been lying idle because the colleges don’t have students. Following the decision to phase out P1 certificate, to be replaced with a diploma as the minimum qualification for a primary school teacher, only 1,000 students have qualified.

This paltry number cannot be distributed across the 30 colleges, hence, only Machakos, Thogoto, Baringo, Egoji, Migori and Shanzu TTCs have been allocated between 150 and 200 students each for the start of the first term under the

. The implication of this is that we could have a shortage of teachers in the near future. Through natural attrition and retirement, the number of teachers in services decreases every day and there must be enough trained teachers to replace those who leave.

It is irresponsible to have TTCs with idle staff but who continue to draw salaries from the Exchequer. The government should consider the plight of thousands of students who scored slightly lower grades who would wish to train as teachers.