A tussle has emerged over who should hold the bill to retrain a total of 750,000 teachers in the newly launched teacher professional development programme.
The program was unveiled by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and is expected to cost the taxpayer a massive Ksh4.5 billion.
With this approach, it means that all tutors will be expected to renew their certificates every five years.
In the initial rollout of the programme, the Commission had indicated that teachers would themselves raise the bill for obtaining their certificates.
This led to widespread protests, with teachers, through their unions, prompting employers to meet refresher training costs.
However, the Education Committee of the National Assembly is of the view that the government should include this program in its annual budget, so that teachers are not burdened with improving their skills as per the requirement of TSC.
The committee recommends that teacher professional development programs be employer-initiated training, which should be paid for by the government,” the committee said in a statement to Business Daily.
If approved, Kenyans would be forced to dig deep into their pockets to send hundreds of thousands of teachers across the country back to the classroom.