By Rosemil Oduor
Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Nancy Macharia has revealed that the commission plans to recruit 5,000 teachers on permanent terms in the next financial year.
Speaking during the release of 2021 KCSE at KNEC offices, Dr Macharia pointed out that TSC was allocated Shs 2.5 billion by the National Treasury for the recruitment process and that the commission will immediately embark on the exercise to recruit the teachers to ensure they report to work as soon as possible and ease the existing teacher shortage in schools.
“The commission will put more emphasis on staffing sub county secondary schools during the forthcoming teachers’ recruitment process since the schools admit the bulk of learners,” she pointed out.
She said that since 2019, the government has been allocating funds to TSC to recruit teacher interns and that to date, 28,000 interns have served the Commission.
“In the 2022/2023 Financial Year, the government allocated TSC Shs 1.2 billion to recruit 6,000 interns as a stop gap measure to ease the shortage in our schools which stands at 114,581 teachers,” she said.
Concerning CBC, the CEO revealed that the Commission will train 60,000 CBC teachers from Monday April 25, 2022, in preparation of Junior secondary school, which commences in January next year.
“The teachers will be drawn from both public and private secondary schools. The aim is to train all 116,024 secondary school teachers by the end of this year,” she said.
She pointed out that 229,292 primary school teachers and teacher training college tutors have been trained on CBC and further expressed confidence that the teachers are adequately prepared for the Grade Six CBC rollout which starts this month ahead of their transition to Junior School in January.
Dr.Macharia revealed that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the commission retained a number of school heads who were set to retire as a move to not further disrupt learning in institutions.
“The Commission will now release the affected principals, and fill in their positions competitively ahead of the resumption of the normal academic calendar cycle in January 2023.On behalf of the Commission, I wish to thank all the Principals who offered to remain in service for an extended period to help us to stabilize our schools to ensure academic programmes ran uninterrupted,” she said.
She assured teachers and their familes who suffer from Covid-19 related ailments that the teachers’ health insurance scheme will continue to cover them against the virus.
“We were the first scheme to cover COVID-related ailments in a move that helped save many lives of our teachers and their loved ones. By last month, a total of 1,043 teachers and their loved ones had been admitted over serious COVID-19-related ailments and released after full recovery. I urge all beneficiaries of the scheme to continue utilizing the scheme to ensure that they live healthy lives,” she pointed out.
She spoke on teachers’ astounding role during the shortened calendar and thanked all the teachers for remaining resilient and hardworking over the last two shortened academic calendars.
She revealed that most of the teachers defied the raging Covid-19 effects to cover the syllabus.
“At least 16,000 teachers volunteered to report to schools despite the government’s directive that they stay at home since they were among the vulnerable population. For all these efforts, the Commission is forever grateful. While we lack words to thank you enough, we will surely turn to our reward policy to keep appreciating those who excel the most,” she said.
She pointed out that teachers have a key role in ensuring the success of the 100% Transition Policy.
“I would like to urge the teachers to tighten their belts as they admit the incoming 1.2 million Form One learners to their schools,” she said.
She added that the Commission is determined to ensure that the 100 per cent transition policy succeeds to guarantee all children their basic right to education.
“I would therefore like to urge all TSC field officers and heads of institutions to work in harmony with relevant government agencies so that all the candidates join the secondary school they have selected to,” she said.
She further revealed that His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta graciously accepted the Commission’s proposal to introduce a Mwalimu Award to recognize well performing teachers.
“He has further directed that the commission should work with relevant officers to explore modalities of institutionalizing this award within the existing policy and legal frameworks. I would like to thank him for this is a clear testimony of his appreciation of the teachers’ role in the education sector.” She concluded.
