The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers has dismissed as laughable the Teachers Service Commission proposal to hire 5,000 more teachers.
Narok Kuppet executive secretary Charles Ngeno said that the secondary teacher shortage in that county alone stands at 1,000.
The move to universal secondary education will increase secondary student numbers from 2.8 million to 3.8 million this year. Around 300,000 students are still waiting to join Form 1.
Last year the TSC recruited 7,000 more teachers but in December said they needed another 70,000 teachers if standards were not to suffer. Clearly recruiting another 5,000 teachers is inadequate.
Already class sizes in many secondary schools have gone over 100 pupils, far above the recommended 40 pupils.
Academic research has shown that it is necessary to have a well-educated population to benefit from the ‘demographic dividend’. Otherwise it will be a ‘demographic disaster’.
The Treasury needs to find the extra money to recruit the necessary number of teachers to ensure that all Kenyans have access to quality secondary education.
Quote of the day: "Apartheid didn't impinge on music. It impinged on people's freedoms."
Hugh Masekela
The South African trumpeter died on January 23, 2018
