The Teachers Service Commission(TSC) will employ 18,000 more Junior Secondary School teachers to bring to 48,000 the total number the commission has employed so far.
TSC Commissioner Timothy Oyucho said they will also employ 2,000 primary teachers, noting that owing to budget constraints, they will not employ senior secondary school teachers.
Speaking in Kamolo during a precursor bonding meeting with education stakeholders from Busia County ahead of the main meeting at St Monica Chakol Girls High School, the commissioner said they were aware of the acute shortage of JSS teachers, thus the need to employ more.
“The criteria used to arrive at the number of teachers in every sub-county is based on the number of classes.
For example, Bunyala will receive 10 teachers out of 261 slots allocated for Busia County, Teso North 54, and Teso South and Teso Central combined 63 teachers.” he said.
Oyucho, who was flanked by Commissioner Dr. Nicodemus Anyang, said understaffing was very critical with a shortage of 116,000 across the country; noting that there are 30,500 JSS classes in the country.
He added that three merits will be applied in the recruitment of JSS teachers.
The first merit will be the recruitment of locals based on their identity cards, while they meet certain conditions.
In the event that there are a few applicants who are locals, they will use the second criteria where applicants from other sub-counties will be considered.
Where some positions are still available, applicants from outside the county will be considered.
Dr. Anyang reiterated that the current Board of TSC has initiated various reforms that are meant to raise job satisfaction and motivation among the teachers.
These include a review of various policies, which proved too unpopular, such as democratization.
TSC Quality Assurance Standards Officer Dr. Reuben Nthamburi urged head teachers to do with available resources, warning them against illegal levies and ensuring Prudent financial management and ethical standards are put in place.
By Gilbert Ochieng
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