The National Assembly has approved the hiring of 88,000 teachers as requested by the Teachers Service Commission.
As much as we would want to cheer the move, the budgetary consideration for a country struggling with external debt is important.
That is why the unions need to be flexible in their regular demand that all the teachers be given permanent employment.
Kenya has since the Kibaki Administration taken the principle of universal education with much seriousness. Billions of shillings have been sunk in the sector to achieve this dream.
Consequently, the population of learners in both primary and secondary schools has steadily grown.
With the coming on board of the free day school education, the transition of candidates to secondary school has risen sharply.
The majority of the 993,718 pupils who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education at the end of last year, for instance, have transitioned to secondary schools.
But truth be told, this situation has taken a toll on quality of education.
For instance, some schools have been forced to increase the number of streams as the number of candidates per class rose in secondary schools to as high as 90 as opposed to the normal 45.
Some learners, in both primary and secondary schools, have been forced to study in shady structures or even under a tree shade.
The understated impact though has been the burden borne by teachers. They can no longer pay personal attention to each child, leave alone properly mark the scripts.
This is the context in which the unions and the government have been wrangling over the case for employing new teachers.
In between there is the International Monetary Fund that is obsessed with fiscal discipline and cutting of a burgeoning public expenditure.
But on Tuesday, a glimmer of hope appeared in the horizon. The National Assembly approved the hiring of 88,000 teachers as requested by the Teachers Service Commission.
The number includes 20,000 trained teachers and 68,000 interns.
But there is a hurdle here. It will entail raising the recurrent budget by Sh26 billion.
As much as we would want to cheer the move, the budgetary consideration for a country struggling with external debt is important.
That is why the unions need to be flexible in their regular demand that all the teachers be given permanent employment.
Raising the number of teachers is long overdue but it must be done with prudential fiscal framework.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
