TSC to deploy an additional 7,282 teachers to address shortage at JSS

By Our Reporter

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will soon deploy an additional 7,282 serving primary school teachers to various public Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) across the country.

The Commission states that these teachers were identified upon verification of their personal files which confirmed they met the requisite qualifications for posting to JSS.

The reevaluations are contained in the response to the Departmental Committee on Education on Teachers’ Medical Cover, Recruitment, Promotion and Delocalization of Teachers in Parliament by the TSC CEO, Nancy Macharia on February 14, 2023.

In the document seen by Education News, Ms Macharia states that the mapping exercise to identify more eligible teachers in primary schools to serve in JSS was ongoing and the exercise would continue to address the shortages at that level of learning.

The necessary qualifications for deployment from primary to secondary school include possession of either a Diploma in Education or a Bachelor’s Degree in Education, at least a C+ mean grade in KCSE or its equivalent, at least a C+ in the two teaching subjects at KCSE or its equivalent and at least 8 units in each of the two teaching subjects.

Macharia said that the Commission has been addressing teacher shortage in secondary schools by promoting and deploying primary school teachers with the required qualifications to teach in secondary schools since 2019.

The Commission recruited 30,550 teachers recently and posted them to JSS but still faces a shortage of another 30,550 teachers given that the teacher establishment for Grade 7 is 61,100 with at least two educators required per class.

According to the Commission, out of the 30,550 teachers hired in January this year, 9,000 of them will serve on permanent and pensionable terms and posted to JSS as well as 21,550 who were taken in as interns in JSS. The remaining slots from the number were sent to primary schools with 1,000 hired on permanent and pension terms while 4,000 were deployed as interns.