The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has now exempted teachers who are handling special units in regular schools from extra lessons in regular classes.
In a Circular number 11/2024 dated August 14, 2024 and addressed to all Curriculum Support Officers and all heads of institutions, the Commission Secretary and Chief Executive Officer Dr Nancy Macharia affirmed that the decision is to enable the teachers to fully focus on their core responsibilities.
Dr Macharia observed in the circular that the initial arrangement where the teachers were also handling some regular classes diminished the overall objective of providing quality education to learners in those special units.
“It has come to the Commission’s attention that teachers assigned to those Special Units are being allocated additional teaching responsibilities in regular classes. This practice undermines the specialised support required by learners in Special Units and diminishes the overall objective of providing quality education to learners with Special and Unique needs,” said Dr Macharia.
“Consequently, the Commission directs that teachers assigned to Special Units should not be allocated extra lessons in Regular classes to enable them focus on their core responsibilities. By a copy of this Circular, the TSC Field Officers are required to ensure compliance,” she added.
She maintained that the Commission undertakes focussed recruitment and deployment programmes to place teachers trained in Special Needs Education (SNE), including those skilled in handling a wide range of disabilities such as mental handicaps, autism, physical handicaps, celebral palsy, hearing and visual impairments, and deaf-blindness, among others.
This directive comes few months after TSC struck a deal with Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (KUSNET) during a retreat in Naivasha on April 8, 2024, part of it being redeployment of 6,000 SNE teachers who had initially applied to be moved from regular to SNE institutions.
Another agreement which was also reached was the exemption from extra classes, which has now come to pass, and creation of an SNE section at the Commission headquarters to deal with SNE teachers.
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