Over 34,000 Teachers to Be Axed

Panafrican News Agency, 9 September 2000

Nairobi - Some 34,146 Kenyan teachers have been earmarked for retirement in the second phase of the ongoing civil service reform programme.

According to a Rationalisation Report proposed by the Education, Science and Technology Ministry and contained in the Civil Service Retrenchment Plan 2000-2002, the teachers are to be retrenched over a period of five years.

If implemented, the retrenchment plan will reduce Kenya's 60,000 teachers by more than half.

The job cut in the education sector follows another in the civil service where 25,000 civil servants have been retired to pave way for a more efficient and affordable workforce.

The report notes that the Teachers Service was excluded under phase one of this programme when it started in 1993.

The net effect was that at the end of this phase, the total number of public servants did not reduce because the service continued to recruit teachers while other civil servants were being retrenched.

To ensure that the teaching service reforms are taken on board in the wider public sector reforms, the Civil Service Reform secretariat has been working closely with the teaching service, including organising joint seminars to discuss the reforms.

The retrenchment plan document notes that the teaching service has, however, indicated that it may be more appropriate to re-appraise and re-evaluate the teaching function.

This move is to be taken in the light of the country's growing population, developmental needs and the skills required in the market place 20 years from today.

The report notes that there may, therefore, be need to re- focus the need for teachers if the country is to attain its avowed goal of industrialisation by 2020.