The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has held that sending teachers back to their home counties will be counter-productive as it will affect their distribution across the Counties.
While speaking to the National Assembly’s Education committee on Tuesday 11th the TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia averred that it will be difficult to balance teachers across the counties because of historical issues, where some counties are more endowed with teachers than others.
She also revealed that Less than half of teachers have moved to counties of their choice since the delocalization policy was reversed.
“We can’t balance staff across the counties. We’ll have an inequitable distribution of teachers of unknown proportions because of historical issues, where some counties are more endowed with teachers than others,”
“This has been the case with Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa counties which have failed to attract applicants for 210 teaching vacancies despite advertising in two recruitment windows,” Macharia said.
She added that this has been attributed to insecurity in the region, which has discouraged non-locals from seeking the positions.
Macharia said only 20, 055 teachers who sought to be transferred to their home counties since the delocalization policy was reversed in November last year have been effected out of the 46, 962 requests.
She said 35, 959 primary school teachers have applied for transfers, but the commission has only transferred 17, 942.
At the secondary level, 10, 967 teachers have applied but due to lack of suitable replacements only 2, 113 transferred.
The TSC boss explained that only teachers who apply to be posted back to their home counties are considered for transfers and that swapping places also works best.
The chair of the parliamentary education committee, Julius Melly, asked TSC to fast-track the transfers since many teachers waste time in regional offices seeking transfers instead of being in classrooms.
According to the commission, out of the 36, 000 teachers recruited this year 6, 000 were a balance from those budgeted for recruitment.
The delocalization policy was halted following an outcry from teachers and their unions who argued that it had a negative effect on families.
The transfer of teachers who were considered to have overstayed at the same workstation started in 2018.
By Thuita Jaswant
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