There is an acute shortage of teachers for Junior Secondary School (JSS) now renamed as Junior Schools (JS).
This is a situation that might affect the effective delivery of the new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
According to the recently released Education Reforms report, in the JS, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) 2022 baseline survey shows that the immediate demand for JS teachers is 70,430.
The number of teachers needed for JSS this year is expected to rise to 73,000 and is expected to rise up to over 120,923 by next year 2024.
This is when the teachers recruited over time will constitute an optimum number for the level of education.
Early this year, the Commission employed a total of 21,550 interns who were distributed to close to 24,000 public primary schools to handle the JSS.
while in the recent ongoing recruitment of the 20,000 intern teachers for public primary and JSS schools, a total of 18,000 intern teachers will be posted to JSS while the remaining to primary schools.
The report further shows inadequacy in staffing and distribution of teachers in basic education institutions with teacher shortage in both primary and secondary schools currently standing at 103,077 teachers.
The TSC data shows a shortage of 44,496 teachers in Primary schools and 58,581 teachers in Secondary schools by January 2023.
Although six (6) counties with a surplus of 796 Primary school teachers have not been redistributed under the staff rationalization program.
The shortfall in the number of teachers has been occasioned by an increase in the number of learners due to the 100 per cent transition policy and free day schooling for Secondary schools.
The situation has led to high Pupil to Teacher Ratios (PTR) hence compromising with the quality of education.
In Primary Schools, TSC data (2023) on staffing shows that there are 223,296 teachers in 23,274 Primary schools with a staff establishment of 267,792 teachers hence a shortage of 44,496 teachers.
By Our Reporter
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