On 19 November 2018, the Teachers Service Commission said it had dismissed 32 teachers in October after finding them guilty of sexual relations with students, while another 26 were facing disciplinary action for abetting cheating in the KCPE exam.
TSC chief executive Nancy Macharia said the commission would begin a wider campaign in January to remove rogue teachers from schools. She made the remarks during the release of the 2018 KCPE results at Star of the Sea Primary School in Mombasa.
Macharia said other government agencies should handle the criminal side of the cases. “We can’t allow a few people to ruin our children’s future,” she said. “Those found guilty will be dealt with accordingly.”
She also urged school boards and managers not to hire people who could put children at risk. The comments came as the education sector faced grim figures on pregnancies among candidates sitting KCPE and KCSE exams.
Education CS Amina Mohamed blamed parents for failing to supervise teenagers. She questioned why some parents leave their children unattended in the afternoons and said too much responsibility had been shifted to teachers. “What is the teacher supposed to do? What is the parent doing?” she asked.
Kenya National Examination Council chairman George Magoha also said parents had failed in their duty. He said, “Why produce children if we have no time for them? It is our duty to spend some quality time with our students,” and ruled out supplementary exams for pregnant candidates.
Amina directed the ministry’s quality assurance team to investigate and report all cases of pregnancies among schoolgirls so remedial action could be taken. She said the country could not ignore the problem. “We must have this conversation. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. It is happening to our children, our sisters, and even our young brothers. We will deal with it or it will not go away,” she said.
UNFPA statistics covering June 2016 to July 2017 showed that about 378,397 teenagers aged 10 to 19 became pregnant during that period.
The issue had already drawn wider concern in related reports, including cases from Kitui and Makueni, as officials warned that teenage pregnancy was undermining school performance and child welfare.
