The National Qualifications Authority has announced it has lowered qualifications for admission to teacher training colleges for diplomas and certificates. Students with a C plain or C- in KCSE will now be admitted to study for diploma in education down from the previous C+.
Applicants for P1 will now require just D+ instead of C plain. These changes ostensibly target to address, among others, the shortage of teachers, especially in northern Kenya. The region has been prone to terrorist attacks against non-locals (read non-Muslims) compounded by mistreatment of non-local tutors posted by the Teachers Service Commission.
Knut has protested the discrimination by locals and insecurity and advised teachers to reject deployment to northern Kenya. In response, political leaders from the region have vowed that they will train their own locals to teach in their schools. But that is only addressing one limb of the problem since public servants of other professions too face similar oppression.
Lowering the entry requirements will be counterproductive in the long run. If the ministry wants to bridge the shortfall, it should apply selective affirmative action rather than these universal measures. We join Knut in rejecting this attempt to sink our education into this cesspool of mediocrity.
It takes little effort to obtain a D grade in anything and we shudder to think that any child should be condemned to this low standard of instruction.
Quote of the Day: “Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.”
