TEACHING AS A CAREER HAS HIT AN ALL TIME LOW.

The shortage of teachers in the country is threatening to get worse due to natural attrition and other related causes. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) says that each district in Kenya loses a considerable number of teachers with many others being incapacitated due to HIV/AIDS. Still, many more teachers are exiting the teaching profession and opting for greener pastures. The situation has become worse to the extent that TSC has resorted to stop teachers from applying for study leave as a way of retaining them in classrooms. Considering that the number of students attending Kenyan schools is projected to increase in tandem with the increase in the general population it is inevitable that that by 2015 the country will have to content with an unusually large demand for new teachers. But the problem will still be in getting these teachers since teaching in this country is traditionally one of the lowest-paying jobs. A visit to most teacher training institutions indicates that teaching as a career has hit an all time low. Ironically, there appears to be no commitment on the part of the government to give this profession a positive image. From a practicality standpoint, policy makers need to put themselves in the position of these newly qualified teachers. Will they want to spend their entire career teaching in an environment that saps a lot of their energies but which offers very little pay with no social mobility at all? My guess would be that very few of these qualified teachers are going to opt for the teaching job. Even as desperation is quickly setting in, all that the government is preoccupied with is micro-managing schools through an overloaded curriculum and testing mandates without realizing that schooling will continue to fair badly where there is inadequate investment meant for the improvement of this very important human capital. In virtually all public schools across the country many teachers have had to confront such problems as overcrowded classrooms, inadequate or dilapidated facilities, students suffering from malnutrition and other manifestations of poverty, poor parenting, increased drug and substance abuse among students and inadequate funding for education. The worst of all is the fact that the teaching profession is bedeviled with poor teacher recruitment efforts and poor administrative practices that typically saddle teachers with the most challenging and demanding tasks. To overcome the above problems the government must first adequately remunerate teachers well to make the teaching profession appealing to newly qualified teachers. The government must also ensure that it pays teachers a lot more in order to attract them to unfavorable parts of this country. TOME FRANCIS, BUMULA. http://twitter.com/tomefrancis