Parents and teachers protest recruitment guidelines

Kenya: Parents and a teachers union now want the Government to guarantee equal opportunity to all candidates applying for recruitment into teaching service.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and the Kenya National Parents and Teachers Association (KNPTA) officials yesterday protested at new guidelines that give job applicants who graduated before 2002 priority.

KNPTA Chairman Nathan Barasa said parents have invested heavily in their children’s training and cannot wait another 10 years to apply for recruitment.

“It is not the problem of the candidates or parents. The Government must ensure all qualified candidates are accorded an equal opportunity in the recruitment,” said Mr Barasa.

He warned that locking out candidates who graduated recently will demoralise students and persons wishing to join the teaching profession.

Barasa was responding to the revised recruitment guidelines for secondary and primary teachers that accords candidates who graduated in 2002 first priority in the hiring of 10,000 teachers. The guidelines provide that candidates who are 40 years and above should score higher points compared to those below 26 years.

Knut secretary general Wilson Sossion said it is not right to give an unfair advantage to some applicants and asked the Government to allocate more funds.

He said: “We asked them to hire 40,000 teachers but they only gave the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Sh2.5 billion to hire 5,000 new teachers.

"Let Kenyans know that only 5,000 teachers are being recruited. The other 5,339 are replacements due to attrition,” added Mr Sossion. TSC secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni said after recruitment of 5,000 new teachers the deficit will stand at 85,000.