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{
    "id": 772092,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/772092/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 497,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Special Needs Education. Although, I do have a TSC service number, I have never practised as a teacher because that is not what I wanted to do. I am not belittling the profession, it is very noble. It is sad to see readers allowance has been withdrawn. In my area of interest, these teachers deserve readers’ allowance. Why has it been taken away from them without an explanation? It facilitates those teachers who have visual challenges and would require people to help them read, especially in terms of marking. In the last Parliament, I tabled a Motion in the National Assembly about the need to have a teacher rate scheme with the recognition of the fact that we have huge classrooms with limited numbers of teachers. The student-teacher ratio is strained. Part of it is because of this issue we call house allowance. Every teacher wants to work in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa because of house allowance. The irony of it is that some teachers bribe to be posted in those areas, especially Nairobi. That does not apply. In fact, the distribution issue is so serious because you are posted in Nairobi, but you live in Ruiru and Kajiado, Murang’a, et cetera . These areas serve as dormitories of Nairobi workers. Workers in those counties are not benefiting from that house allowance yet the cost of housing is the same. This is one of the challenges of teacher distribution in this country. It needs to be addressed. It is lack of incentive that makes teachers not to go to far-flung counties that are in dire need of their expertise. The other issue that is also critical is you find primary school teachers who are doing their PhDs, but they are Class 2 or 4 teachers. These school-based programmes that I can confidently say are self-producing because you have people coming for three weeks. Some may quickly do rote learning, followed by exam and within no time they have a degree. Then they quickly get a Masters and just remain in their locality. However, when you look at the output, it is not there. Our schools are not performing. We are just pursuing higher education to get papers for the sake of it. As part of this audit, we should consider terms of the skills and expertise that is within the teaching fraternity. Those are some of the issues we need to consider. Sometimes teachers refuse to be posted to far-flung places because they may not access universities that are closer to them. This is cascading upwards such that the quality is very low even for those who end up as lecturers or university dons. I was very surprised to see teachers resisting to teach in their own localities. In fact, I heard one saying that they need to know the local environment. I do not think so. Just like any public official, a teacher must be ready and willing to be deployed across this county without necessarily saying that maybe they have some form of local knowledge as to ensure that they only remain where they come from. Someone ends up having that village mentality. I do not think there is any form of local knowledge that is required in the classroom. A teacher is a teacher and can teach anywhere. That mentality has even encroached universities such that instead of having the universality of universities, we are basically having university villages. We have even seen political leaders lead in demonstrations demanding that one of their own must be a vice-chancellor. If we have somebody who has gone to a local university, gotten their degree, masters and PhD from there, then comes to teach the same place, how do we expect that person to widen his or her own doxology even in terms of research? The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}