Mwanafunzi sio kitoweo cha mwalimu: TSC send home sex offenders

sexual abuse

It is sad for a parents to learn the teachers they have entrusted with a responsibility of teaching and mentoring their children become the ones preying on them.

Reports indicate that 1,228 teachers have been sacked in the last seven years because of having sex with learners present a worrying scenario.

Some 1,077 teachers in secondary and primary schools were kicked out between 2010 and 2017, while another 151 were dismissed between last year and this year, according to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

The teachers’ employer told Senators on Wednesday that many more cases go unreported because some cultures engender early marriages, while ignorant parents accept hush money from teachers or other school workers.

TSC chief executive Nancy Macharia tabled a report on teenage pregnancies before the Education Committee, chaired by Bomet Senator Christopher Langat, which shows Kakamega County has the highest number of culprits, at 88.

It is followed by Kisii with 61, Homa Bay (60), Kitui (53), Bungoma (47) and Siaya (46). Others are Wajir (1), West Pokot (3), Tana River (4), Nairobi (3), Mandera (1) and Mombasa (4).

Ms Macharia said teachers were responsible for only two percent of pregnancies among learners, adding that local communities were more notorious for preying on schoolgirls.

The commission works with the police to investigate and prosecute the teachers, she said.

“Where offenders are subjected to criminal proceedings, whether ongoing or concluded, the commission always takes up such cases within its disciplinary process as per the regulations in order to weed out paedophiles from the teaching service,” Ms Macharia said.

However, some of the teachers who have been dismissed by the TSC get hired by private schools, which do not have a proper mechanism to vet their history.

Ms Macharia said out of the dismissed 1,228, some 279 teachers had applied for a review of their cases without success.

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