RUNDOWN
• Learners who are already in class are whiling away time, waiting for the formal commencement of learning.
• Education officers acknowledge the delay in the deployment of teachers but insist that this should not stop those teachers in the schools from stepping in.
• Kenya National Union of Teachers also officials decry the inordinately long wait for teachers.
Confusion continues to cloud the first week of Junior Secondary School (JSS) education in public schools.
Regions like Nyanza and Western have attained over fifty percent of enrolment of children in JSS, but like other parts of the country, the children remain untaught.
“In Nyanza the response has been very good, as you can see we are in Kisii this morning and we are at 60%,” Nelson Sifuna, a director of education in Western says.
Learners who are already in class are whiling away time, waiting for the formal commencement of learning. A wait tied to the arrival of teachers.
“Right now they are looking very smart in their uniforms they are very happy, but if you ask them what they have learned they will tell you it is nothing,” says David Obuon, Exec Sec, KNUT, Kisumu.
Education officers in the region acknowledge the delay in the deployment of teachers but insist that this should not stop those teachers in the schools from stepping in. Kenya National Union of Teachers also officials decry the inordinately long wait for teachers.
“I request the teachers to continue going to class and teaching as we wait for further direction, for those children still at home, I request that you report as fast as possible,” Sifuna adds.
While KNUT officials are calling for urgent action, Ministry of education officials from the region say the wait for teachers won’t be very long.
“We want to ask tsc to deploy the teachers as early as yesterday so that these learners can have an experience of learning in junior secondary,” Obuon says.
Nelson says the process of deployment is ongoing and the list of teachers approved will be taken to the regions and the regions will take them to the counties for posting.
In the same region, a section of private schools, although well equipped, are looking at low numbers of students enrolled as parents flock to public schools for the free education.
By Jane Kibathi.
