Plans to have Kenya listed as a native English-speaking country are ongoing. This has been revealed by Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba.
According to Ogamba, this will allow Kenya to send unemployed teachers who are estinated to stand at 400,000 to foreign countries for work. Ogamba made the revelations when he appeared before the Senate.
“We have over 400,000 qualified teachers who don’t have jobs. The strategy to reduce the number is that we are trying to see if the teachers can go to other countries to teach because we have some who have been out if work for 10 years,” the cabinet secretary told the Senate committee.
“Once we make that proposal and it is approved, then we will be able to reduce the number of teachers we have who are unemployed.”
In July this year, Kenya sent more than 60 teachers for work in various districts in the United States.
The teachers secured teaching jobs in the US from a group of 150 who had indicated interest to work in American schools, an official from the recruiting agency said.
Reports had indicated that Baltimore City Schools had made a request for the teachers to the government of Kenya last year.
How Eldoret pupils sat fake, photocopied KPSEA examinations
The dire state of unemployment in the education sector was revealed in October when 314,117 unemployed teachers who have registered with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) applied for 46,000 vacancies that had been advertised by the TSC.
