Take up teaching course to end teacher shortage, DPP urges

The prevailing shortage of teachers in North Eastern counties will only end if students from the region train to become tutors, DPP Noordin Haji has said.

Most schools in Garissa, Wajir and Mandera do not have enough teacher mainly because of security concerns that caused many employees to flee.

And now, the Director of Public Prosecutions says local students must take up the teaching profession to bridge the huge gap.

Haji who comes from Garissa county said as long as the local community shies away from the profession, the region will continue experiencing teacher shortage.

He urged parents to encourage their children to take up teaching as a career saying the region’s progress was suffering as due to inadequate teachers.

“As I stand here today, I want to encourage parents to try and encourage our children to take up this noble career after Form 4. We have a very big problem in this region as far as teachers is concerned and the solution lies with us,” Haji said.

He was speaking during the launch of Young Muslim Girls Primary School in Garissa.

“Unfortunately majority want to take up courses in procurement, nursing and many others because they think teaching is as not a good course compared to others. But to the contrary this is best profession in the world.”

The DPP gave a recent incident where the leaders from Northeastern held a meeting with officials from TSC to discuss on the teachers shortage bedeviling the region but were taken a back after they were told that even if they were to be given special allowances there were still no local students who want to be teachers.

The issue of teachers shortage in the region has become a thorn in the flesh of both parents, students, leaders and education stakeholders something that ends up affecting results especially in national examinations.

The situation started being experienced in 2014 after al Shabaab militants started attacking non local teachers forcing them to flee the region.

The situation led to the TSC to withdraw the non local teachers from region to other parts of the country a move that was widely condemned by the local leadership who not only said it glorified terrorism but also amounted to denying the children their basic right to education.

Most notable attacks are the bus attack in Mandera in 2014 where some 28 teachers were killed, the Garissa university attack in 2015 where 148 students were killed and the Kamuthe attack 2020 where six teachers were killed.

According to records from TSC, Mandera is faced with a shortage of 1,849 and 517 teachers in primary and secondary schools respectively.

In Wajir the shortage in primary school stands at 1,414 and secondary 51 teachers  while in Garissa  county the shortage is 913 in primary schools and 651 for secondary schools.

In 2019 during the pastoralist summit in Garissa, then deputy president William Ruto challenged the local community to embrace teaching saying the solution lies with them.

“Let us lead from the front by ensuring we have our children join teaching colleges so we can once and for all end this teachers crisis,” he said then.