Non-local teachers from Hulugho Sub-County, Garissa County, are now seeking for transfers after their colleague was killed last week in a terror attack.
The teachers are now appealing to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the Ministry of Education to transfer them elsewhere for security reasons after suspected Al Shabaab militants stormed a local village and killed a teacher and local administrator in cold blood.
Stephen Musili, a teacher in Hulugho Primary School was gunned down by Al Shabaab militants at dawn on Monday, together with the area chief, Abdifatar Gani.
Speaking to the press in Garissa town, the visibly dejected teachers from the area, who fled soon after the incident, lamented that for close to five days, TSC had not responded to their safety concerns while they were working in the highly volatile area.
The teachers, who have been camping at the Garissa TSC offices since Monday, vowed not to return to Hulugho over safety fears.
Led by Meshark Makwara of the Hulugho comprehensive school, the teachers are calling on their employer to give them compassionate leave to go home and relax from the terrifying experience, even as the commissions find a solution for their plea.
“We have been camping at the TSC headquarters in Garissa since Monday and up to now we have not been able to get a solution, on whether we will be deployed to other safer places, or we will be taken back to Hulugho.
As teachers from Hulugho sub-county, we have agreed as a team that we will not go back there again because the place remains hostile and unsafe for non-local teachers,” Makwara said.
“We are also asking for a compassionate leave to go home and relax, because some of us are traumatised from what we saw at Hulugho. Our colleague was butchered, shot seven times and his body currently lies at the Chiromo mortuary,” he added.
At the same time, Makwara called on the government to find a long-lasting solution for teacher insecurity in the larger Northeast so that no more lives are lost from terror-related incidents.
“We are appealing to the TSC to look for a lasting solution for teachers working in Hulugho Sub County; either we are deployed to our home areas or to safer sub counties in Garissa county,” he said.
Caroline Kaluki, a teacher at the Matarba Primary School in the Sangailu zone, said that the area has been very hostile to non-local teachers and that they have been risking their lives, walking for more than 2 kilometres to the school.
“We walk for at least two kilometers from Sangailu town to our school and sometimes when on duty, we are required to report as early as 7am which is very dangerous. It is said that the terrorists do not attack women, but how sure are we? We are calling on the government to hear our appeal and look at our issues quickly,” Kaluki said.
On the allegations that the non-local teachers take advantage of the teacher shortage in the northeastern region to apply for permanent and pensionable terms and then seek transfers, the teachers said that they were willing to teach in any part of the country, as long as their security was guaranteed.
“It is wrong to allege that we come to this place to seek slots and then we go to other areas. When this term began, the head of these schools had already planned on the work for the term, so we didn’t have any intention of moving out. The only thing that made us move out is the terror incident,” said Victor Onyango, a teacher from Hulugho comprehensive school.
“Some of us have stayed in this area for 7 years and as per the TSC Code of Regulations, after finishing 5 years, you can go to any other school of your choice. When someone is claiming that we are coming here to get jobs and run away, it doesn’t add up at all,” he added.
The teachers argued that after the past mass exodus of teachers from the region, the government convinced them that it had addressed the overall security situation in Northern Kenya for them to go back and teach, but the recent incident has reignited fresh fears for their lives.
Since 2014, over 40 teachers have been killed in terror attacks in the volatile northeastern region, causing panic and a mass exodus of teachers to other areas, with some teachers even resorting to job desertion.
The government at some point was forced to recall local teachers from retirement, so that they would fill the gap left after the mass exodus of teachers.
Political leaders in the region have championed homegrown solutions like enrolment of local young people into teaching courses, with a view to filling in the teacher shortage gap.
By Erick Kyalo
