Govt addresses teacher shortage in Northeastern

The teacher shortage in the Northeastern Region, which had for a long time been understaffed due to mass transfers, has been resolved following the employment of 1,800 teachers by the government, according to the Director General for Basic Education, Elyas Abdi.

Speaking in Garissa Township during the opening of examination containers for the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) papers, Abdi said that during President Wiliam Ruto’s North Eastern development tour earlier this year, he directed employment of more teachers in the region to resolve the teacher shortage issue.

The Director General noted that the government had also improved security in the region, noting that only a handful of incidents had been reported.

“In this part of the country, in the past, we used to have a shortage of teachers, but now it has been adequately addressed, because when the President came and toured these three counties of Garissa, Wajir and Mandera, he gave a directive that 1,800 teachers be employed, and that has already solved the staff shortage that we used to have,” Abdi said.

“Further, security in the region has improved in the recent past, and so we look forward to successful assessments in primary and junior schools and also for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination,” he added.

Abdi noted that all the teams in the region had been adequately briefed on the rules of the examinations to ensure a free, fair and credible examination.

“Our teams on the ground, the teachers, supervisors, and centre managers, have already been briefed very well by our field officers and the KNEC officials on the dos and don’ts; they have been guided on the issues of mobile phones and on the issues of candidates who may be absent for one reason,” he said.

“This is actually an assessment. It is not the highest exam in the sense that the reforms have already made a number of adjustments on how we should conduct our assessments. The students from grade 6 are expected to have 100 per cent transition,” he added.

This year, a total of 94,538 candidates (56,737 boys and 37,801 girls) in the Northeastern region are expected to sit for KCSE, KPSEA and KJSEA examinations.

 By Erick Kyalo