By Our Reporter
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has identified several categories of teachers who will not be affected by the ongoing staff balancing in schools across the country.
In a detailed Circular No. 5/2022, teachers employer has advised all its County Directors to exempt teachers aged 56 years and above from the transfers geared towards equitable distribution of tutors across the country.
Others excluded from the teacher rationalization exercise include those suffering from terminal illnesses and teachers with disabilities. TSC requires, however, that the committees vetting the transfers must ensure that this cadre of teachers produces valid documents of the illness or disability where applicable in order to enjoy the exemption.
The Commission has also advised the county directors to transfer those who have served at least three years in their current stations except for the North Eastern region where only teachers who have served for more than five years can be moved to new schools.
The circular dated April 4, 2022 further advises the regional officials to ensure that they first conduct the staff balancing within the Sub-counties before considering moving the teachers outside those jurisdictions. They are also instructed to give priority to teachers who had individually sought for transfers.
County Directors had been given till May 4, to submit their reports on how the exercise was conducted complete with the list of the affected teachers.
TSC has been grappling with a serious staff shortage within public schools. The organization has placed the staff shortfall at over 114,000. Besides this challenge, the commission is also faced by the problem of uneven distribution of it’s over 330,000 teachers serving in various public institutions across the country.
For many years, schools in urban areas attract more teachers as compared to rural-based institutions. Similarly, schools in arid areas as well as those in insecurity-prone zones are poorly staffed despite efforts by the commission to reward tutors in such areas with hardship allowance.
