Former Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu has blamed the perennial shortage of teachers in Tana River County to failure by locals to enroll in teacher training colleges and compete for employment.
“Shortages are also aggravated by continued incidents of insecurity which forced those working in the county from other parts of Kenyan to seek massive transfers fearing attacks,” said the minister.
Machogu advised that stakeholders should promote nonviolent coexistence with people drawn from other communities and regions working as teachers in the region to stem the negative effects wrought to development of education in Tana River.
While declaring a major and explicit government program to ensure more teachers are hired and posted to the schools in the County this financial year, the CS however asked stakeholders in Education and parents to encourage local people to become teachers.
The government, Machogu said, was aware of the shortage of 297 teachers and would ensure that more teachers were hired and allocated to local schools to bridge shortage gap so as to ensure children from the areas enjoyed their right to education.
‘’As a ministry we are cognisant of the prevailing teacher shortages and we are keen to employ and send the tutors here to bridge the deficit, all in a bid to ensure learners in the region also benefitted from efficient education providers’ seek for teacher training train as teachers,’’ said the CS in statement from the ministry.
This was after a major tour of the various schools destroyed by recent floods and camps hosting displaced families where he disclosed that despite allotting employment openings specifically for teachers drawn from indigenous communities most went unoccupied due to lack of trained teachers from the region.
He urged education stakeholders to launch a campaign to encourage schools leavers in the region to pursue teaching careers because employment was guaranteed from the government and the private sector.
’’ Local leaders, educationists and parents in this region should encourage their children to enrol in teachers training colleges and join teaching as a careers especially because they were guaranteed employment in the civil service or in the private sector teachers drawn from the County, ’’ advised Machogu.
Majority of the schools in Tana River continue to inhabitable and are still submerged in flood waters forcing learners, teachers and families to be relocated to makeshift schools and cams where some teaching has been going on.
Due to the schools and learners relocation program, the ministry of education in conjunction with the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG CDF) and the department of Arid and Semi-Arid Lands has set aside an undisclosed amount of money to meet the cost of the projects which are already on going.
The Arid and Semi-Arid Lands department has already been ahead in the program after offering various schools and families roofing iron sheets, food and other building materials to flood victims within the last few weeks.
Despite the interventions which stakeholders indicate were welcome, there has been questions about budgeted allocation at schools and families’ level which local residents argue should be made public.
Information on the budget and allocation to specific areas of need, stakeholders in education have argued would at least ensure transparency and accountability especially now that the government has announced determination to get rid of corruption in the utilisation of monies from the state coffers.
‘’Lack of a clear budget on what the various government departments have set aside for targeted works could create loopholes for corruption and theft and this should not happened just weeks after the government expressed its determination to tame corruption in its expenditure, ’’, said a stakeholders based in Hola who sought not to be named. (Ends]
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