EDITORIAL: Teachers’ hiring budget cut will hurt learning

The government’s decision to drastically cut the budget for hiring more teachers means that learners in public schools will continue to suffer from inadequate staffing.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) had asked the National Treasury to allocate it Sh20.2 billion in the fiscal year starting July for the exercise.

The agency, however, is now expected to receive only Sh3.2 billion or 15.8 percent of what it had requested.

At a time when the government has declared that it is keen on achieving a 100 percent transition from primary to secondary schools, the budget cut means quality is not a top priority.

As expected, the policy will worsen the current student-teacher ratio that is estimated at about 1: 34. Most of the developed economies including Norway and Japan have a ratio of below 20, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

A high ratio such as Kenya’s means that each teacher is responsible for a large number of learners. This makes it difficult for students to engage teachers who also have less time to pay more attention to individual learners. The Ministry of Education recently announced it had attained a 99.8 percent transition target for the 2019 KCPE candidates joining Form One. With inadequate funding for TSC, those additional students will increase the work burden of teachers.

TSC says it had planned to hire 40,000 interns at a cost of Sh4.8 billon and normal recruitment of 25,000 teachers at a total cost of Sh15.4 billion, hence the Sh20.2 billion request to the National Treasury.

The agency notes that the Sh3.2 billion allocated will enable it to employ only 5,000 new teachers for seven months and 10,000 interns for nine months.

The gap is clearly huge and will only get worse unless the government commits more resources to education, including availing funds for hiring more teachers. The goal should not be a simple one of taking learners through primary and secondary schools.

The institutions need to be well-equipped and staffed to enable learners acquire quality education that will serve them well in their personal and professional lives.

While it is true that the government is facing a cash crunch, deeper spending cuts ought to be made in other sectors before critical areas such as education and health are made to suffer.