The National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya has asked for 900 primary teachers and 300 for secondary at a combined cost of Sh181 million per year in Garissa, Wajir and Mandera.

“To date, the commission has in its register 291,785 unemployed teachers a figure that outweighs the total shortage in public schools,” said Mrs Macharia. Last year, a total of 993,718 candidates sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination but by February about 200,000 were yet to report their schools due to unexplained reasons.

Mrs Macharia recently told the National Assembly’s Education Committee that she needed Sh16 billion to recruit 68,000 intern teachers and Sh10 billion to hire 20,000 teachers on permanent terms.

Mrs Macharia said primary schools are short of 40,972 teachers, while secondary schools lack 63,849.

The campaign to achieve a 100 per cent transition rate from primary to secondary schools has also created the need for 50,504 new teachers for four years.

MORE FUNDS

Budget estimates for 2018/2019 indicate that the commission has been allocated Sh226 billion.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary General Wilson Sossion asked the government to provide more funds to plug the shortages.

The 100 per cent transition is aimed at ensuring that all pupils who sit their Class Eight examinations join secondary schools.

Already, the World Bank has recommended that Kenya considers phasing  out qualifying examinations for those joining secondary schools in order to address the issue of poor transition.

The report which was discussed at the Pan African High –Level Conference on Education, which ended last month in Nairobi recommended that the government puts focus on students’ continuous assessment tests.

Courtesy of Daily Nation