The Teachers Service Commission has sacked 1,228 teachers in the last seven years because of having sexual relations with learners.
Appearing before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, chaired by Bomet Senator Christopher Langat, TSC chief executive Nancy Macharia tabled a report on teenage pregnancies indicating a worrying scenario.
In the report, Kakamega county had the highest number of culprits, at 88, followed by Kisii with 61, Homa Bay (60), Kitui (53), Bungoma (47) and Siaya (46).
Others were Wajir (1), West Pokot (3), Tana River (4), Nairobi (3), Mandera (1) and Mombasa (4).
Macharia told the senators that many more cases went unreported because some cultures promoted early marriages, while ignorant parents accepted money from teachers or other school workers to keep silent
The TSC boss nonetheless, noted that some of the teachers who have been dismissed by the TSC get hired by private schools which do not have a proper mechanism to vet their history.
She, however, stated that teachers were responsible for only two per cent of pregnancies among learners, adding that local communities were more notorious for preying on schoolgirls.
While there are clear guidelines on how teachers should relate with students of the opposite sex, these are largely superficial and hardly adhered to.
Students are, for example, barred from going into teachers’ living quarters while dormitories are out of bounds to teachers of the opposite sex.
In July 2018, the Education Ministry released a report indicating that teenage pregnancies had hit an all-time high, with Narok County leading with more than 60 per cent of the reported cases countrywide.
During the 2018 national examinations, at least 10 girls gave birth while sitting their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examinations, and several others while sitting for the Form Four test.
