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Why Kenya is turning teachers into its next big export

Updated Aug 18, 2024, 1:30am EDT
africa
GPE/Kelley Lynch
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The News

NAIROBI — Kenya has a plan to increase a key new export: teachers.

It wants to send teachers to wealthier countries such as the United States and Gulf nations, as part of an aggressive strategy to cut unemployment and boost remittances.

Late last month, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi unveiled the first cohort of nearly 70 teachers destined for schools in the US. The Department for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs said the teachers got jobs through a partnership between the labor ministry and two private companies.

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But critics warn the policy risks exacerbating the country’s already dire shortage of teachers.

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Know More

President William Ruto, who has been grappling with youth-led anti-government protests and calls for his resignation, last month said the government would support anyone who found work abroad.

Ruto said the labor ministry knew of 400,000 foreign jobs available and that some 1,000 youth were leaving the country each week to work abroad, although he did not provide evidence to support his claims.

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The ministry of labor did not immediately respond to a request for information on the number of people leaving the country for work, or their destinations.

The National Employment Authority, which is responsible for increasing youth employment, estimates that more than 160,000 Kenyans had applied for jobs abroad as of Aug. 16. Its website lists mostly domestic work in Gulf states, where nearly 420,000 Kenyans already work, according to the prime cabinet secretary.

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Step Back

The policy will likely drive student-teacher ratios in East Africa’s largest economy even higher — its current recommended ratio is one teacher to 40 students, but some poorer schools have a single teacher for 70 students.

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In the US, the recommended ratio is 1 to 15. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) recommends a teacher-student ratio of 1:25 in primary schools for quality learning.

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Muchira’s view

Kenya’s short-term gain will lead to long-term pain. Teaching abroad can alleviate economic hardships, at least for those fortunate enough to land those jobs and relatives receiving money sent home. And the government hopes remittances will go some way towards cushioning the blow of tax rises that it was forced to abandon in the protests.

But longer-term, this policy could undercut opportunities for the next generation of Kenyans, who will receive a poorer education from teachers struggling with bloated class sizes. That would leave them ill equipped to compete with their foreign peers for highly skilled jobs as the world shifts to a more global labor market over the coming decades.

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Room for Disagreement

The protests that have rocked the country for nearly two months are evidence of a large population of young people who have plenty of time, but not much capital. An alternative to sending workers overseas would be the implementation of measures aimed at bringing more informal workers into the formal economy to expand the tax base, say some analysts.

Ken Gichinga, chief economist at Mentoria Economics in Nairobi, said the $4 billion raised annually in diaspora remittances pales in comparison with what Kenya would raise if the government focused on increasing job opportunities locally.

Similarly, Peterson Waweru, a fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, told Semafor Africa that labor migration is “not a sustainable strategy” to address the unemployment crisis.

“We are witnessing brain drain in all sectors as the best leave the country,” he said. “The fact that the government spent too much subsidizing their education and training them, only to go for jobs that build other countries, is a huge loss that cannot be compensated with the money they send back.”

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