The criteria PSC used for recruitment of 1,300 TVET trainers 

The Public Service Commission (PSC) has released the criteria and detailed guidelines that Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions will use to shortlist and interview those who applied to fill the 1,300 vacancies advertised in April this year.

The shortlisting exercise took place between June 12 and June 25, 2023 before commencement of interviews from July 3, 2023 across all institutions.

In a circular seen by Education News dated June 5, 2023 and signed by TVET Principal Secretary (PS) Dr. Esther Thaara Muoria, acting director of the Kenya School of TVET and all principals of national polytechnics, institutes of Science and technology, technical training institutes and technical and vocational colleges have been instructed to fully facilitate the panel members who will carry out the exercise.

The circular, which was also copied to Ezekiel Machogu, the Cabinet Secretary (CS) in the Ministry of Education (MoE), revealed further that the exercise will take place in the ten regional centres where the 220 TVET institutions have been clustered.

According to the circular, the shortlisting panel will be constituted in writing by the Board of Governors (BoG) or Council of respective TVET institution.

The panel will consist of Deputy Chair of the BoG or Council of the institution, Deputy Principal who will sit in the panel as the secretary, and course or subject specialist who will sit in the panel as a member.

The panel Chair will provide leadership to the panel and ensure that the shortlisting is conducted in compliance with the provisions, procedures and guidelines provided, while the panel secretary is the facilitator.

This is through availing all the documents required for shortlisting, scheduling and coordinating the shortlisting exercise, and recording all deliberations in line with the criteria established before and derived from the job advertisement.

The subject specialist (member) will be required to scrutinize and advise the panel on the technical aspects and requirements of the job that will guide in shortlisting the most suitable candidates.

The panel has also been instructed that before they start any shortlisting exercise for any post, they should develop criteria which should be in line with the requirements for appointment and comply with the provisions of the Constitution on values and principles of public service under Article 232.

Further, the criteria should be non-discriminatory on any grounds as per the Constitution. It should also consider Persons Living with Disability (PWD) and gender, with all candidates recommended for shortlisting being obliged to meet all the requirements in the advert, among others.

As a matter of procedure, the panel will be mandated to first exclude any applicant who does not meet any of the requirements for appointment before scrutiny of qualifications, which will include area of specialization, additional qualifications, and year of graduation.

After that, they will be required to analyse the shortlist and consider the geographical spread of the candidates to ensure that there is adequate representation from the counties and sub-counties, plus gender and PWD considerations.

The panel is also expected to apply any other legal criteria on the qualified candidates to arrive at a manageable number, as well as properly document and record the additional criteria they have used.

On obtaining approval of the shortlisting reports, interview schedules indicating the date, time, as well as the venue is to be prepared to include only those candidates whose shortlisting has been approved.

After the approval and scheduling of the interviews, the shortlisted candidates will be invited through e-mail due to the urgency of the exercise, and they will be required to avail their original documents during the face to face interviews.

An interview panel shall be constituted in each of the 220 TVET institutions, which will develop a customized interview tool or score sheet, with interview questions on various fields being agreed upon and possible responses discussed to ensure that all the panelists are in agreement.

The tool will cover understanding of the job (20 marks), knowledge in the technical area (50 marks), government structure, organization functions and practices, among others, (20 marks), and communication skills and current affairs (10 marks).

The panel will indicate the total points being deducted for any negating responses observed during the interview.

The circular has also directed the interview panel on the procedure to follow to conduct the interviews.

Under this, each candidate upon arrival will be provided with an interview candidate’s profile to fill. Thereafter, the filled form together with the original certificates and other supporting documents will be handed over to the facilitator.

Upon checking that the form has been duly filled, and that all documents are available, the facilitator will hand over the form to the Chair whereupon clearance, the officer will usher the candidate into the interview room.

The Chair will guide the interview and at the end, release the candidate by handing back the certificates.

Each candidate will be rated by every panelist and the score recorded on the score sheets.

At the end of the interviews for each post, average scores for all the candidates will be recorded in order of merit.

Recommendation for appointment will be based on the merit score, gender and PWD consideration, county, sub-county, regional spread or ethnic consideration, and the set pass mark.

The panel will also be required to prepare a reserve list for each post after getting a suitable candidate for appointment.

Thereafter, details of recommended candidates and those on the reserve list will be approved by the Board or Council and submitted to the CS for approval.

Table: How the 1,300 New Trainers will be distributed

By Education News reporter

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