Fafi MP Abdikarim Osman as encouraged local school leavers to join teaching profession as one way of ending the acute teacher shortage in the county.
Speaking in his constituency over the weekend, Abdikarim said that as leaders they are ready to pay for any student willing to join the teachers training colleges or pursue degree course at the university level using CDF kitty.
Abdikarim said that elected leaders from the area ‘have resolved to train locals to fill the post instead of lamenting year in year out’ over teacher shortages.
“We have agreed as leaders that we shall pay 100 percent for any local willing to join teacher training colleges. We are tied of lamenting of the teacher shortage while we have our own whom we can train,” Abdikarim said.
He urged unemployed locals with degrees to come out and ‘help teach their brothers and sisters instead of staying at home’.
The MP was reacting to claims that 3 out of 13 newly recruited nonlocal primary school teachers posted to Fafi constituency ‘were recalled immediately after being posted under unclear circumstances’.
The legislator blamed the Teacher Service Commission (TSC) for woes facing the education sector in the area.
“We are informed that a senior TSC official in Nairobi was behind the withdrawal of the teachers. I tried calling the Garissa county director for clarification but he declined to pick my calls. He also refused to pick calls from Dadaab, Fafi, Ijara MPs,” Abdikarim said.
Early last year, TSC withdrew all non-local teachers from Fafi and Ijara constituencies following Al-Shabaab attack at Kamuthe primary school that left four non-local teachers dead.
Unconfirmed reports is that all the 13 newly recruited teachers that were meant to fill the vacancies have been redeployed to ‘safer’ sub-counties within Garissa County.
Last week Dr Mohamed Diis Shafat, a parliamentary hopeful for Fafi constituency demanded to know who ordered the transfer of teachers order.
“These teachers were transferred a week after they were posted. Who gives such orders? Every Kenyan has a right to quality education. We will not accept such move,” Shafat said.
“Why are you recruiting these teachers if you will redeploy immediately. This is just taking these institutions as a recruitment bureau,” he added.
