RIGHTS: Kenya Sacks Teachers Who Sexually Abuse Their Pupils

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Aug 14 2004 (IPS) - With only one year left for African countries to achieve gender parity in schools, doubts are beginning to be cast on whether Kenya will be able to meet its deadline.

With only one year left for African countries to achieve gender parity in schools, doubts are beginning to be cast on whether Kenya will be able to meet its deadline.

The Education for All (EFA) initiative, of which Kenya is signatory, was adopted in 2000 by African heads of state in Dakar, Senegal. The initiative seeks to ensure that all African nations realise equal enrolment between boys and girls in both primary and secondary schools by 2005.

This week 110 teachers were sacked and 447 interdicted for sexually abusing their pupils in Kenya.

Making the announcement on Aug. 10, Kenya’s assistant minister of education Beth Mugo said teachers implicated in sexual misconduct with their pupils would not be tolerated. “We have thousands of unemployed qualified teachers out there. We shall not spare any of those who shamelessly prey on their pupils,” she told journalists in Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

She said 57 cases of ”carnal knowledge and immoral misconduct” on school children were reported across the East African country this year alone.

Mugo’s remarks came in the wake of last week’s media reports on an incident in which a teacher was pardoned in central Kenya because there was no one to take over his science lessons. The local association of parents and teachers felt that sacking the teacher would affect the performance of the school.

A source close to the school, who spoke to IPS on conditions of anonymity, said the teacher had ”impregnated several girls”. And, according to the ministry of education, the teacher has already been interdicted.

But the Kenya National Union of Teachers said the government has mishandled the issue. ”There are over 200,000 teachers (in Kenya) and one or two incidents of errant teachers should not be allowed to tarnish the profession. What the government should have done was to investigate the few cases and proceed to find out the root causes and address them, and not demonise the entire teaching profession. This sends wrong signals to the public and the international community,” said Francis Ng’ang’a, secretary general of the Kenya National Union of Teachers.

”We are demanding investigation into the matter. If found guilty, then a disciplinary action should be taken against such teachers,” he told IPS.

But some organisations have rallied behind the government. ”We fully support the action taken by the government to interdict teachers who have been sexually abusing children. However, interdiction is not enough. These teachers should be prosecuted,” said Heimo Laakkonen, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) representative in Kenya.

The Forum for African Women Educationalists-Kenya Chapter (FAWE-Kenya), which champions the rights of the girl child, says Kenya’s legislation does not provide sufficient punitive measures against errant teachers.

Kenya’s Teachers Service Act states that teachers should not be involved in any sexual harassment of any girl or boy. If they do, they risk being interdicted. “This is not harsh enough. There is need to get a more stern measure, which will deter other would-be offenders,” observed Eliud Kinuthia of FAWE-Kenya.

Such measures could include instituting a jail term on any teacher found molesting pupils, he said. “This is a serious offence, considering the implications involved, particularly on the girl child. There is urgent need for concerned stakeholders to review the policies surrounding this issue and come up with stricter punishments. This can be interdiction coupled with years in jail,” Kinuthia told IPS in an interview on Aug 13.

According to 2004 statistics compiled by FAWE-Kenya, 6.6 percent of girls who enter form one of secondary school will dropout by form two. ”Again, pregnancies have the highest index as a cause of the dropout,” Kinuthia said.

In an interview with IPS in June, Penina Mlama, FAWE’s executive director said between 2,000 and 3,000 girls dropout in schools in Africa every year due to pregnancy.

Campaigners say the key to ensuring equal school enrolment rates between boys and girls lies in instituting policies that provide for pregnant girls to return to school after delivering a baby.

Kenya has such a policy. Its May 2004 Policy for the Education Sector states, ”The government will strengthen the re-entry of teenage mothers after weaning off their babies and together with other stakeholders, sensitise communities on negative socio-cultural practises that reduce effective participation of children in education.”

But this policy has not been officially conveyed to school heads, to compel them to readmit teenage mothers.

”A statement should go out to all those in authority including traditional chiefs, district education officers, and school heads to make sure teenage mums are absorbed in schools. Then some follow-up must be made to ensure that everybody is adhering to the regulation,” Kinuthia said. “Only then will the gender gap in education be bridged.”

Kenya’s 2003 enrolment rate of girls in primary school stood at 48.6 percent as compared to 51.4 percent boys, according to the ministry of education, while the 2002 enrolment rate in secondary school (form 1-4) was 447,203 for boys and 400,084 for girls.