A teacher in class at Alqalam primary school a private school in Mandera town
Sunday, April 12, 2015
A major crisis could be looming in Northeastern Province following the Garissa terror attack that claimed the lives of 147 students.
A big percentage of the students killed in the attack were training in education.
Garissa Education officer Noor Ibrahim said the attack has badly affected the education sector in the region that was still reeling from the effects of a terror attacks in Mandera including an incident December 2014 in which 28 people were killed when their bus was attacked by militants. Many of the victims were teachers.
“Most of the students in the university were doing teaching practice in several public schools in Garissa. The education standards had really improved as a result of this,” he said
Ibrahim said here was an average of four teachers at any one given time in each secondary school.
Over 50 public school teachers who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity gave the government a one month ultimatum to transfer them failure to which they will abandon the profession altogether.
“Time and again the government has assured us of our security. But as things stand, that is far from the truth,” said one teacher from Garissa primary school.
They cited an incident where a secondary school teacher at Hagadera refugee camp was shot and killed by Al-Shabaab just a few days before the Garissa University attack.
A parent with two boys at Garissa high and Sankuri secondary schools said that the two institutions were closed hurriedly following the attack on Thursday last week.
He said that the boys had sat for only three papers in their end term examination when the schools were closed.
“If this is the direction the education sector is going, then we headed for dark days,” the parent added.
Businesses have also been affected by the insecurity with the with the giant Naivas supermarket which opened its branch in mid last year being the latest to close shop for fear of being the next target.