Government set to hire 5000 teachers to ease acute shortage

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i awards Head of Department, Sally Sang during Moi Education center 22nd annual prize giving day in Nairobi on 23/03/2016. Photo WILLIS AWANDU

The government will hire 5000 personnel this year to ease acute shortages of teachers in public institution across the Country.

Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Fred Matiang'i said they are set to hire more teachers as the process to replace those that have exited the service goes on.

Speaking in Moi Educational Centre in Nairobi Wednesday at the 22nd annual Prize giving day, Matiang'i expressed optimism that the government is committed to improve access to quality education in the country.

This comes barely a month after the Kenya National Union of teachers (KNUT) raised a red flag over acute shortage of teachers, accusing the government of failure to address the shortage that currently stands at 100,000 across the country.

"We need to agree that we have a shortfall of human resource personnel in our public institutions. But our responsibility as parents and teachers is to ensure that our children get access to quality education. We are doing what we can to address teachers shortages in this Country," Matiang'i told parents.

The CS said the government has pumped in huge resources in the education sector, adding that Kenya has taken a lead in Sub Saharan Africa in allocating resources to boost Education in the country.

"Let us not dwell much on negative criticism. We are doing our best in Education sector. We are ranked the seventh country in the World in terms of putting up huge resources to boost the quality of Education in the country," said CS.

Matiang'i regretted that examination irregularity that has been witnessed in the country in the past years has drastically compromised the education standards.

He vowed to address the issues with the Kenya National examination Council (KNEC) which has received public criticism over failure to tame rampant exam cheating.

He however disclosed a serious overhaul of the KNEC structures following a directive from President Uhuru Kenyatta to address the matter by dealing decisively with those behind the examination syndicate.

"We propose a serious restructuring of KNEC to ensure we restore our Examination integrity. I have 30th March 2016 to address the issues with the stakeholders," the CS said.

The CS lauded former President Daniel Moi describing him as the champion of education in the country.

"Our former President has set a good precedent in this country and he has left education legacy in our hands. Moi is a visionary leader who has invested in education of our children. He has set up high learning educational institution in the county," Matiang'i said.

The Principal for Moi Educational Centre Philemon Chebii said the school had recorded outstanding results in 2015 KCPE after the school achieved a mean score of 379.28 with 46 candidates scoring more than 400 marks.

"We achieved 100 percent of form one admissions from the 176 candidates we registered to sit for 2015 KCPE exams. Our success was because of the commitments of our teachers, parents and the school board," Chebii said.