Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji has urged the youth in Garissa county to take up teaching careers in order to curb the teacher shortage situation in the region.
Speaking during the launch of Young Muslim Girls High School, the DPP urged parents to encourage their children to take up teaching as a career citing that the county was in need of teachers.
“As I stand here today I want to encourage parents to try and encourage our children to take up this noble career after form four. We have a very big problem in this region as far as teachers are concerned and the solution lies with us,” Haji said.
“Unfortunately the majority of us here want to take up courses in procurement, nursing and many others because they think teaching is not a good course, in the contrary this is the best profession in the world,” he added.
The DPP gave a recent incident where the leaders from North Eastern held a meeting with officials from Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to discuss on the teachers shortage affecting the region but were shocked after they were told that no local students wanted to be teachers even if they were given special allowances.
Teacher shortage situation in the region has affected results most especially in national examinations.
The situation began in 2014 after Al Shabaab militants started attacking non local teachers forcing them to flee the region.
TSC was then forced to withdraw the non-local teachers from the region to other parts of the country.
According to records from TSC, Mandera is faced with a shortage of 1,849 and 517 teachers in primary and secondary schools respectively.
