Garissa County Director of Education Khalif Isaack has assured parents, students and pupils from the area that no school would be closed following the mass transfers of non-local teachers.
Khalif was reacting to resolutions reached at a meeting by the affected schools board of management held at Garissa high school Friday that asked parents to withdraw their children from school from Monday until the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) revokes the transfers.
Addressing the press in his office, Khalif said that the boards have no powers to close the schools.
The education director asked parents to allow their children to report for classes as normal on Monday as his office finds remedial measures to ensure learning continued uninterrupted.
“I want to assure all the parents of the affected schools that learning will continue and they should take their children to school as usual,” Khalif said.
Khalif said that all schools in the county were operational and no school has been closed due to the insecurity in the area.
“Even Saretho and Kamuthe that were closed due to terror attacks two weeks ago have been reopened,” he said.
The two schools were temporarily closed after Al-Shabaab shot and killed four pupils at Saretho boarding primary school and a week later killed three non-local teachers in Kamuthe.
During the meeting that was also attended by KNUT officials and the other education stakeholders, he asked TSC to revoke the transfers of all the teachers who have not reported to their new stations.
The resolution which was read by pioneer Garissa Teachers College Principal Hassam Sheikh accused TSC of ‘sabotaging the education sector in the region by unilaterally transferring all non-local teachers from the area without consultation’.
“The transfers will cause unprecedented crisis in the education sector. We are playing into the hands of the Al-Shabaab by transferring all non-local teachers from the county,” Hassan said.
They asked for the immediate removal of the TSC board boss Nancy Macharia whom they claimed that under her watch, the region’s education has suffered most.
They claimed that TSC is using North Eastern as an employment ground for non-local teachers.
“We know that this is another plot to transfer all the non-local teachers and then recruit the same number to replace them. We will not allow TSC to use the three counties to create employment opportunities for non-local teachers at the expense of our own,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hulugho MCA Adow Omar said as leaders, they were perturbed by the decision by TSC to transfer all non-local teachers even from safe sub-counties.
Adow also pointed an accusing finger at the TSC boss for taking unilateral decision without involving all the relevant stakeholders.
“How do you transfer non-local teachers even without the knowledge of the County Director of Education? We read malice in the entire process,” he said.
By Jacob Songok
