Ruto changes tune on the promise to hire more teachers
Ruto changes his tune on the promise to hire more teachers as pledged during the campaign period prior to the August polls.
Ezekiel Machogu, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, declared that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which was supposed to hire 58,000 teachers in January 2023, will instead hire only 30,000 teachers.
President William Ruto had pledged during the campaign to hire 116,000 unemployed teachers in his first year in office.
The Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) encouraged Ruto to honor his promises to hire more than 58,000 teachers during the celebration of World Teachers Day on October 5.
The president had promised to invest Ksh25 billion annually for the transfer and recruitment of more teachers in addition to implementing ongoing teacher training before the general election.
But now according to Education CS remarks, Ruto has backtracked on his promise to hire more teachers.
“We know that this coming year, we had promised 116,000 teachers, but because of the nature of the economy, we are going to do it progressively.
“So this coming January, we are going to recruit 30,000 teachers and will improve thereafter,” Machogu told principals at an event in Kisii School on Thursday, November 17.
CS Machogu explained that the dwindling economy could not allow the President’s promises to be fulfilled all at once.
“The remainder of the 116,000 promised by President William Ruto during the elections campaigns has been pushed forward due to the current economic situation,” the CS stated.
Machogu expects the new hirings to address the deficit in the teaching force, especially in anticipation of the Grade six cohort transcending into the junior secondary level.
“As we open schools in January 2023, our children who are doing their CBC exams will know whether they will be hosted in primary or secondary school following instructions from the President,” the CS detailed.
On June 23, 2022, Ruto met with representatives from the education community and signed a charter pledging to make significant advancements in the field to reduce the country’s teacher-to-student ratio disparity.
The President’s Education Charter vowed to hire 58,000 teachers per year among the more than 300,000 qualified but unemployed teachers in the nation, bridging the 116,000 teacher shortage in public schools during the first two fiscal years.
TSC acknowledged that there were a chronic shortage of teachers in both primary and secondary schools, lamenting the fact that there weren’t enough 114,581 of them.
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