Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary General Collins Oyuu has said the laxity by the government to employ more teachers has caused education to be commercialised.
Oyuu said there are enough qualified teachers in the country but the government is not hiring them.
The Knut boss said by the end of 2022, the number of employed qualified teachers and unemployed qualified teachers was almost equal.
" Towards the end of 2022, we had 345,000 qualified, trained and teaching versus close to 320,000 trained, qualified but not employed teachers. We don't have a shortage of teachers in this country. What we are pushing for is employment of more teachers," Oyuu said.
"Because of this laxity in employment, education has now been commercialised and this will kill this country.
"Someone sets up an institution and brings in a few teachers. The pay is little because they are jobless and then have the learners come in to pay a lot which makes them profits."
Oyuu said education is a public service and should not be a profit-making venture.
He spoke during an interview with Spice FM on Tuesday morning.
The secretary-general said the union is pushing the government and the Teachers Service Commission to hire more teachers as the current teacher-pupil ratio stands at 1 to 65.
"The UNESCO recommendation is one teacher to 45 students at most. But go to Olympic Primary School and you will see a teacher handling over 70 to 100 learners," he said.
Oyuu said that as much as the Kenya Kwanza government deserves credit for the recent hiring of 35,000 teachers, more need to be employed.
Initially, the employment of teachers did not go beyond 5,000 annually and another 2,500 for replacement of those who died or retired.
"We are pushing, we are trying to let the government know that the working load for a teacher, more so in CBC, we need more teachers," he said.
Oyuu said for the CBC to be rolled out successfully, the number of teachers is essential.
