Kisumu, 30/12/06 

  SCHOOLS IN NYANZA MUST  BE STAFFED WITH QUALIFIED TEACHERS AND THE MINISTRY SHOULD WEED OUT HOLDERS OF FAKE ACADEMIC CERTIFICATES

  By Leo Odera Omolo
 
  The ill-conceived and provoking remarks attributed to the Education Assistant
Minister Mrs. Beth Mugo that the poor academic performance in Nyanza Province is due to bad politics were the most unfortunate utterances ever made by a member of Narc government.
 
  Madam Mugo's remarks were full of miscalculations and underestimation of the real situation on the ground and were meant to divert the attention of members of the public in general and the parents in particular.
 
  The drastically falling standards of education in Nyanza has come about as the
result of poor administration of education in the region, corruption by the field education officers posted to various districts and poor allocation of  resources to schools in the region.
 
  It can also be attributed to bad governance, poor supervision of schools and
teachers by the field officer and poor staffing of teachers.
 
  Many schools in Nyanza are manned or staffed with unqualified teachers, some of who hold forged and fake academic certificates. Some of these bogus teachers instead of being detected by the field officers have bought their ways and even become headmasters.
 
  The Education Ministry seems to have no time of carrying out thorough investigations about teachers holding forged academic certificates. Each time
such cases are reported to the DEOs, AEOs and school zonal supervisors the
matter becomes a source of easy prey for the field and staffing officers as the
suspects rushes to them with money. When the inspection team visits certain
schools they are lavishly entertained by the suspects with "nyama choma", beers
and colossal amount of money changes hands.
 
  A case in point is that of a teacher in Uriri Division in Migori District who
had been posted to head a primary school located right in his home village where the parents knew him very well, that he had dropped out of a local secondary school in Form II due to poor academic performance. The same teacher made no further step to improve his education. But his wealthy father succeeded in fraudulently acquiring KCSE examinations result slip purchased from another man at exorbitant cost, which landed the Form II drop out to a Teacher's Training College.
 
  The parents knew it pretty well that this particular teacher was using someone
else's KCSE result slip which enabled him to go to a T.T.C for a teaching course through corruptive methods. They physically ejected the teacher out of their school.
 
  Instead of the Ministry and the TSC investigating this particular incident to
its conclusion, the same rejected teacher was later posted to head another
school in the neighborhood where his academic background is not known to the parents. Without victimizing this teacher, who is commonly known by everyone within the locality as a holder of fake certificate, the teacher in question was promoted and posted to another school as the headmaster!! And am sure the field officer did not act for nothing.
 
  Why didn't the Ministry and the TSC go further to find out why the parents had mobilized the villagers and the pupils to chase away this particular teacher??
 
  There are many cases of similar nature not only in Migori district but almost
in every district in Nyanza region, the Gusii region included.
 
  Taking into account that many teachers have died in recent years due to
HIV/AIDS epidemics and that most schools in Nyanza are currently understaffed, Madam Mugo cannot expect any good performance in a schools where only 6 or 7 teachers are charged with responsibility of teaching over 400 pupils.
 
  In such a situation it's even puzzling and shocking that among the 6 or 7
teachers this number of teaching staff in a given school, there could be one or
two teachers holding fake and forged academic certificate.
 
  The issue of fake forged academic certificates is not a new phenomenon in
Nyanza. Some of these teachers have used the same bribery tricks and made
meteoric rise even up to the positions of school supervisors, AEOs, DEOs and
Tactutors, and some have even stood and won elective positions within KNUT
district branches.
 
  Politicians in Nyanza or elsewhere in the republic of Kenya don't go to the
classroom and teach the pupils nor do they discharge supervisory duties.
 
  The naked truth of the matter is there exists discriminative allocation of
resources such as learning gears and poor staffing of schools in Nyanza with
unqualified teachers. There are also same elements of discriminative
distribution of public funds based on ethnic and political considerations.
 
  I therefore wholeheartedly agree in principles with the remarks attributed by
the Lan'gata MP Hon Raila Amolo Odinga that Mrs. Mugo and his colleagues at the Ministry should address some of the pertinent issues. She must stop the bad habit of beating about the bush.
 
  The Hon Member for Dagorreti must adopt the noble idea of thinking first
before making uncorroborated remarks meant to tarnish the names of Nyanza leaders.
 
  We all know where the problem comes from and why as well as the source of
dismal performance leading to poor CPE results.
 
  For Kenyans to be cohesive the likes of Beth Mugo must adopt the pragmatic
policy of looking into issues in the national perspective instead of parochial
and thoughtless remarks aimed at catching cheap publicity. This in my view is
what I call loose talk.
 

  ENDS
  leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
 
The writer is LUOCOME REPORTER based in Kisumu. We urge all LUOCOME members with pressing issues pertaining to media and press releases to kindly contact him from any where in world. He will assist you to get true picture of your Village Developement.
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