Kenyan graduates will not be eligible for recruitment by Kenya’s police service in its latest drive to recruit 5,000 new officers, a police official has said.
It is reported that the police force is keen to avoid a pay dispute with graduate police officers as part of its efforts to rationalise salaries within its ranks.
National recruitment begins on Thursday and targets people with a minimum qualification of D+ in the secondary exam – a score considered below average.
“We are advising those with degrees to wait for other positions to avoid labour issues,” the police official, John ole Moyaki, said. “We are not discouraging graduates from joining the police service, but there are better opportunities and higher job groups that would suit them, apart from the police.”
Police in Kenya have a long history of using excessive force when enforcing the law, often resulting in deaths, but security officers are rarely held accountable.
In the meantime, the vice-chairperson of the National Police Service Commission (NPSC), Alice Otwala, said the commission is committed to rooting out corruption in the recruitment of police officers.
To eradicate corruption, the commission is engaging in a sensitisation campaign to educate the youth on what they need to possess during recruitment exercises in order to avoid exploitation.
On a visit to Siaya, Otwala told potential recruits that the days of the cartels were numbered, adding that the NPSC will not allow anyone to exploit young people.
The vice chair said that they have established that most youth fall prey to fraudsters who pose as commission officers and scam them into parting with large amounts of money.
Atwala explained to the youth that police service is not a place for failures, and that it needs upright individuals who are willing to serve Kenyans.