Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on Friday, March 22, ordered the scrapping of a form four certificate as the minimum requirement for Kenyans seeking to secure house help jobs abroad.
Gachagua, who was presiding over the launch of the Recognition of Prior Learning Policy at Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi, termed the requirement as discriminatory.
According to the DP, the minimum requirement of a Form Four certificate was not a valid prerequisite for determining a person’s viability for a house help job.
“Stop this requirement of absorbing only house girls with form four certificates. Stop that thing! None of all these girls who brought up our children had papers yet they brought them up nicely,” Gachagua remarked.
While insisting on the matter, the DP noted he was triggered to issue the directive after a group of people approached him lamenting over the threshold.
The DP maintained that as long as a girl could take care of a child then she was deemed fit to take up the role of a house help.
"What is that? Once a girl knows how to take care of a baby, yet she does not have a Form Four certificate, let her go and take care of the baby abroad," the DP stated.
"I don't think it makes sense to say house girls can only be people who have completed form four."
According to the DP, a girl's failure to understand the English language should not be used to stop her from pursuing her ambition of working abroad.
The second in command further noted that Kenyan girls were sharp and therefore it would take them a maximum of three weeks to understand and speak different languages.
"You learn on the job. Even if it involves speaking Arabic, they will learn it. The girls are sharp, they will pick," noted Gachagua.
"I want to say that these Kenyans travelling abroad are marketing our products. I have seen an upsurge in people taking our tea in Saudi Arabia."
