The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has stated plans to hire 25,000 teachers permanently and 12,000 on an internship in the next financial year to manage the double transition to Secondary schools.
In a budget plan statement tabled before the National Assembly’s Committee on Education, TSC chief executive officer (CEO) Nancy Njeri Macharia said the commission plans to spend Ksh10.75 billion to employ permanent teachers and Ks12.4 billion to hire interns.
Due to the implementation of the competency-based curriculum (CBC), learners in Grade 6 will transition to junior secondary in January 2023 while standard 8 candidates will be expected to join secondary schools, causing the double transition.
“The current Grade 4 and Standard 6 learners will transit to junior secondary and form 1, respectively, in 2023. This will lead to higher enrolment which will call for additional teachers,” says Ms Alacharia.
The teachers’ employer has been recruiting teachers every year to address the current shortage in public schools. Due to lack of funding, the 100 per cent transition policy from Standard 8 to form One worsened the teacher-learner ratio in secondary schools.
There is a shortage of 19,750 teachers in secondary schools. TSC planned to recruit 12,626 teachers per year to bridge the gap in its 2019-2023 strategic plan and the plan is still being executed.
More than 10,000 teachers leave the serve via retirement and natural attrition every year. Teacher shortage stood at 61,671 in post-primary institutions before the implementation of the 100-per cent transition policy according to TSC chairperson Lydia Nzomo’s exit report.
The country needed 50,504 teachers – 12,626 per year to successfully implement the policy. From 2017/2018 to 2019/2020, the state recruited 15,700 teachers to manage the transition but the shortage jumped to 80,849 in secondary schools.
The shortage in primary school at the time slightly reduced from 40,807 to 36,777 by end of 2020. The commission has only employed 23,700 teachers since 2017 against its 50,504 targets.
During her farewell dinner on Friday last week, Ms Nzomo urged the incoming team to follow up on the proposal at parliament to employ more teachers.
“I urge the new board to follow up of TSC proposals to parliament for budgetary allocation to employ 25,000 teachers in the next financialvear,” she said.
Dr Macharia said the commission presented a budget proposal of sh300,503 billion last year to finance various programmes but was allocated Sh281,701 billion, according to the 2021/2022 parliamentary budget
Further, Ms Macharia said that other key programmes in the 2021/financial year include the recruitment of 5,000 additional teachers for Sh2.5 billion and 6,000 intern teachers for Sh1.2 billion.
Ms Macharia highlighted the necessity to train this category of teachers to enable them to specialise in senior secondary schools. In the statement, TSC informed the parliamentary committee that it has plans to spent Sh1 billion in the training of teachers on a Competency-based Curriculum (CBC).
A further, 25,000 teachers will be trained on the School-Based Teacher Support System (SBTSS) under the Secondary Education Quality Improvement (SEQIP) Project. TSC also plans to build a county office for Sh 15 million as well as coaching and mentorship programmes for 25,000 teachers.
