The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has been asked to reconsider reverting to its earlier decision that lowered minimum entry points to teachers training colleges for primary school teachers.
In May this year, the Ministry of Education at the behest of the TSC terminated the training of some 3,000 teachers with D+ minimum grade in teacher training colleges across the country. At least 300 of these were trainees at the Garissa Teachers Training College who were all sent home.
Speaking on Monday at Garissa High School during the launch of the education quality dialogues for North Eastern region, the Dadaab MP, Mohamed Dahiye said the teachers trained under the program were meant to fill the glaring teacher shortages experienced in the region.
Dahiye said if TSC did not come around and embrace the program then the implementation and realization of the goals of the new curriculum would not be achieved in the region.
The MP defended the policy from those pointing fingers at it, saying it was the best stop gap policy to tackle teacher shortages in the 17 counties where it was targeted.
He added that proper channels were followed and stakeholders input adopted before the program was launched.
“TSC mandate is limited to recruitment and deployment and the reason why they are involving themselves in matters of policy which is squarely in the ministry’s docket is beyond comprehension. As people from a long marginalized area we feel we are being targeted,” he said.
Dahiye pointed out that Garissa and Mandera teachers colleges now faced imminent closure as a result of lack of students despite the heavy investment in infrastructure.
The legislator decried mass failure by candidates from the region in national examinations.
He alleged that the region is negatively profiled by examiners ‘thus the recurrence of mass failure year in year out’.
Dahiye called on KNEC to trust the monitoring systems the government had put in place for reporting cheating and not look for extraneous reasons to fail candidates.
By Jacob Songok
