Tag Archives: Uuru Kenyatta

Latest Education News

Ministry of Education and TSC to Deploy Teachers with Specialized Training to Head Special Schools

The Ministry of Education of Education is in the process of profiling heads leading Special schools. This is with the intention of ensuring that only heads with considerable specialized training are appointed to head the special schools. This comes on a back drop of the Ministry’s realization that most teachers appointed to lead the special schools lack requite skills in special needs.

The Ministry of Education is mandated to provide quality education and training that empowers learners with competences they require to participate in relevant Sectors of National Development.

“In the discharge of this core mandate, the Ministry through the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) endeavors to deploy teachers appropriately to head Special schools. The Considerable specialized training includes: Intellectual challenges, Visual impairment, Hearing impairment, Hearing impairment, Physical impairment, among other defined educational needs”. Says the Principal Secretary via a Circular written to all County Directors of Education by Mr. Amos Maigong, and copied to the Regional Coordinators of Education (RCEs).

Click on the Link below to Read the circular fro the Ministry of Education:

Deployment of Teachers with Specialized Training

In a move seen to re-deploy the heads without the requisite skills but leading Special schools, the Ministry in collaboration with the TSC will be collecting data for all heads leading special schools. “However, the Ministry has noted that there are cases of teachers whose deployment to head Special schools did not consider their specialized training and that such practice had occasionally led to cases of mismanagement, compromised decision making and ineffective delivery of service to learners with disabilities and special needs”, adds the Permanent Secretary.

The Ministry now directs the County directors of education to liase with the TSC and compile details of all heads of special primary and Secondary Schools per Sub-county and submit the report in soft and hard copy by September 26, 2018, for appropriate action. The suitability of the heads to continue heading such units will then be considered. The TSC embarked on a Re-deployment exercise for heads who have either overstayed or work in their home stations, last year. The move has, however, received resistance from the giant teachers’ Union; the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT).

Politics & Govt

Kenyans on high alert over Chinese loans as China seizes zambia’s Power Utility firm for defaulting

Kenyans are on high alert after it was reported that China was in talks with a  Chinese company to takeover Zambia’s power utility Corporation- ZESCO. Africa Confidential has warned that Zambia risks losing its sovereignty to China as that country will seize national assets once government defaults on loans.

In a report titled ‘Bonds, bills and ever bigger debts’ published on September 3, Africa Confidential observed that ZNBC was already being run by the Chinese and disclosed that Zesco was also already in talks about a takeover by a Chinese company.

“A major worry of the IMF and US is that China’s BRI strategy is first to encourage indebtedness, and then to take over strategic national assets when debtors default on repayments. The state electricity company Zesco is already in talks about a takeover by a Chinese company, AC has learned. The state-owned TV and radio news channel ZNBC is already Chinese-owned. The long-term outcome could be effective Chinese ownership of the commanding heights of the economy and potentially the biggest loss of national sovereignty since independence,” the report read.

Africa Confidential noted that Zambians would be alarmed to learn the real Chinese debt figures.

“Zambia is a good example of what the International Monetary Fund and the United States Senate are calling a crisis of accelerating developing-country indebtedness to China.

On 3 August, a bipartisan letter by prominent US Senators to US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin urged the US not to allow the IMF to bail out countries which had got themselves into financial difficulties thanks to over-exposure to Chinese debt, especially for ‘overpriced’ infrastructure projects.

The démarche builds on the concern expressed by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde in a major speech in April and pundits in Lusaka say the description fits Zambia like a glove,” the report read.

“The Senators’ letter names ‘predatory Chinese infrastructure financing’ as part of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ which is integral to the Belt Road Initiative (BRI).

The letter continues that Twenty three of the 68 developing countries are in debt distress or strong risk thereof because of the BRI.

Although Zambia is classified as at high risk of debt distress it is not among the 23 named, but Africa Confidential’s sources say this is only because much of its debt to China has not been fully accounted for, an exercise the Lusaka exchequer is not anxious to complete for fear of the alarm the figures would cause.”

Africa Confidential noted that although Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe announced that all Chinese projects below 80 per cent completion would be halted, President Edgar Lungu told Chinese nationals that all projects would go ahead as planned.

Kenyans will be following these developments, keenly, after president Uhuru Kenyatta secured a $60 billion loan from China’s kitty for development in Africa. Kenyans who have been urging president Uhuru to sign the Finance Bill 2018 amendment, that will halt the introduction of 16 per cent fuel levy, descended on him for celebrating more loans to African nations when his country is crippling in debt. Some advised that he approaches his deputy William Ruto for loans. On Monday, DP Ruto carried Sh10 million in a bag pack for a goat auction in Kajiado County.