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{
    "id": 772008,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/772008/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 413,
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    "content": "ratio. That challenge has a long history. This House would benefit from just a bit of that history. When 1,100 participants from 164 countries met in Dakar, Senegal in April 2000, under what they called the World Education Forum, they came up with a policy document that was called ‘The Dakar Framework for Action; Education for All.’ The purpose of that document was to encourage countries to firm up their commitments, which had earlier been made, on the push for education for all. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it will be remembered that around the same time, Kenya had just emerged from conditionalities that had been imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions on what they called the Structural Adjustment Programs. Much of that was based on requirements by the institutions of Government, especially in the developing countries, to reduce their wage bills as a pre-condition for funding. That affected the number of teachers that this country would recruit and, in fact, what happened at that time was that it was no longer automatic that if you graduate from a teachers’ college or with a degree in education, you would be absorbed in the workforce. So, the number of teachers went down. The matter of the teacher-pupil ratio was further compounded in our country in the year 2003 with the introduction of free primary education where enrolment went very high, but there was no commensurate recruitment of teachers to handle the pupils. Today as we speak, the teacher-pupil ratio in this country is really appalling. It is only through a proper audit to establish an average of the number of pupils that one teacher is handling, that proper decisions on recruitment of additional teachers should be made. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I stand to support this Motion fully. Let the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) and all other relevant authorities embark on a serious and proper audit on the number of teachers that we have in the country; those posted in public schools both primary and secondary, and establish where the gaps are. That way, we will begin to move in step with the world where the discussion now has moved from Education for All (EFA) to access to quality education and considering education as a basic human right. With those remarks, I beg to second."
}