By Roy Hezron
The recent move by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to give intern teachers an upper hand during mass teacher recruitment has raised concern as to whether the Commission is silently shifting its employment policy to directly absorb intern teachers into permanent and pensionable (P&P) terms.
When the Commission advertised 35,550 vacancies in December last year, vacancies on P&P terms were 9,000, most of which were awarded to intern teachers.
The Commission, in its internal memo seen by Education News dated January 11, 2023, wanted its Director of Human Resource Management and Development Dr. Julius Olayo not to delete from payroll all the 2022 serving interns.
“The Board has resolved that all teachers who were serving on internship programme in 2022 be absorbed on permanent and pensionable terms of service in the ongoing teacher recruitment process,” read the memo.
During the recruitment, documents were scheduled for submission from January 6, 2023 and interviews were conducted from January 13, 2023.
In the recent past, TSC has been giving preference to teachers employed on contracts when filling P&P vacancies. It is expected that the recruited interns will be employed on a permanent basis when vacancies are advertised.
While appearing before the National Assembly Education Committee in December 2022 before TSC advertised the 35,550 vacancies, the Commission’s Secretary and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Macharia said the Commission will give priority to 5,000 intern teachers on permanent terms in the current recruitment.
Her response came after the committee chairperson Julius Melly, who is also Tinderet MP, asked her to explain why the commission had failed to employ 5,000 intern teachers on permanent terms yet there were funds set aside for that purpose.
During the recruitment of 8,000 teachers in the 2021 July/August mass recruitment, intern teachers were given an upper hand by being awarded up to 30 marks over their competitors.
Before that mass recruitment, the commission had in January of the same year hired a total of 6,000 intern teachers in a bid to address staffing challenges worsened by the 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary school.
In January 2022, the commission renewed the contracts of intern teachers who were not absorbed in the 2021 mass recruitment for one year ending December 2022.
In a communiqué to regional directors dated December 9, 2021, TSC directed that the renewed internship period should commence from January 3, 2022 and that the intern teachers should be retained in their current work stations for the one year period.
The commission’s field officers were directed that interns whose contracts will not be renewed for whatever reason should not be replaced but that their list should be submitted to the commission.
Teacher Unions lauded TSC’s move, arguing that it will reduce the backlog of early graduates in education who are registered but have not secured teaching jobs.
Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Narok branch Executive Secretary Charles Ng’eno told Education News that they are happy over the recent recruitment of over 30,000 teachers.
He added that the government will absorb the current intern teachers in the next recruitment.
“Those who were serving here in Narok did not even apply for this Junior Secondary School (JSS) positions because we were assured by TSC County Director that they will be taken for permanent and pensionable terms,” said Ng’eno, further asking the commission to do this annually.
His sentiments were echoed by Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Deputy Secretary General Hesbon Otieno who reiterated that the commission should come up with a mechanism that will ensure that after a teacher has served for one year as an intern, they are automatically absorbed on permanent terms.
“They need also not be subjected to any interviews or vetting because it had already been done,” added Otieno.
The recruitment of the 35,550 teachers this year is the first phase of absorbing a planned 116,000 teachers after Dr. Macharia revealed that the commission was short of 114,581 teachers.
Last month, TSC said 10,000 teachers (9,000 for secondary and 1,000 for primary schools) will be employed on permanently while the other 25,550 will be on internship.
As for the interns, 21,550 slots are reserved for JSS while the remaining 4,000 will be dispatched to primary schools; each county being allocated a total of 85 interns, except Bungoma, Homa-Bay, Kakamega, Nakuru and Turkana, which will be allocated 86 in primary schools.
The intern teachers used to earn a monthly stipend of Ksh10, 000 and Ksh15, 000 in primary and secondary schools respectively in 2019, which did not attract many applicants.
But later when it was increased to Ksh15,000 and Ksh 20,000, there was an increase in the number of applicants whenever the positions were advertised.
It’s estimated that the total number of registered but unemployed teachers in the country is over 300,000. A total of 54,377 were registered last year.
