Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) has appealed to teachers’ unions for patience on the matter of teachers’ shortage in Kenya, stating that the issue can only be addressed progressively.
TSC Commissioner in charge of recruitments, Timon Oyucho says that the Commission continues to suffer resource constraints owing to the current financial crisis experienced in Kenya.
He says however, that in order to address the problem partially, the TSC has been trying its level best to do an equitable distribution of teachers based on the level of need across the country.
Speaking when he presided over an education function in Bondo town, the Commissioner observed that Kenya has a very big workforce in the teaching fraternity and that requires a very big budget to sustain.
“As a Commission, we understand the situation of the dire teacher shortage across the nation and we are striving to ensure that with the meager resources, we are able to ensure equitable distribution of the teachers across the regions even with the small budgets,” assured Oyucho.
Oyucho lamented that Kenyan currently has over 350,000 teachers who are employed under TSC but unfortunately the shortage is still big owing to the high number of students in the country.
“The 100% transition policy has seen rise in learner numbers across the country. We understand that the available workforce may be struggling but we plead for patience even as the government is keen to address the issue.
“Positively it must be appreciated that the recent move by the government to employ over 30,000 teachers was a move in the right direction which has cured the shortage a great deal especially in the case of the Junior Secondary schools,” he noted.
He stated however that the government is trying its level best to ensure that it gets enough teachers but challenged education stakeholders including parents to also rethink and see how they can also complement the government efforts.
The Commissioner also counseled that that quality education requires not only the teachers but infrastructure development among other things that they can come in to support.
“At challenging times like this, it will be proper if we have other education stakeholders pull their heads together and consider helping their schools in infrastructure and other bursary support in supplementing the efforts of the government in the best interest of the Kenyan children,” Oyucho advised.
By Erick Nyayiera
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