The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has unveiled its plan to promote P1 teachers to secondary school. Unlike previous deployments, the commission will deploy teachers with various qualifications according to their set standards.
The teachers’ employer announced its plans to deploy more teachers in preparedness for the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) transition classes and the looming 2023 double intake.
The report titled “Status Report on Teacher Preparedness for Competence Based Curriculum Implementation” presented before the Parliamentary Committee on Education, the commission announced its deployment plan for P1 teachers with Diplomas, Higher Diplomas, Post-graduate Diplomas, undergraduate Degrees, Masters and PHDs to serve at junior secondary schools (JSS).
In 2023 when Grade 6 will move to Grade 7 (JSS), the current Class Six learners under the 8-4-4 system will also be enrolled to Form One after sitting the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education Examinations (KCPE).
The junior secondary school will include Grades 7, 8 and 9. The pioneer pupils under the new 2-6-3-3-3 Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) system will transition to junior secondary school in 2023 after sitting the Grade 6 national examinations.
The Ministry of Education has since selected several primary schools for upgrading to junior secondary schools. Those with better infrastructure will be upgraded to host Junior Secondary School (JSS) wing.
Under-enrolled schools and those in close proximity will be merged and either one of the institution’s infrastructure improved. Some schools will have a combination of both primary and junior secondary in the same compound.
It is still debatable whether the Teachers service Commission will reduce its strict guidelines for the practising P1 teachers to serve the considering that teachers who graduated in various institutions do not attain the minimum KCSE grades required by TSC for one to teach in secondary school.
TSC has only been deploying P1 teachers with Degree in secondary school options and those who have attained at least a minimum grade of C+ in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
In addition, the above teachers must also possess at least a C+ in their subjects of specialization and meet the minimum teaching units needed for Bachelors Degree in Education.
TSC database points that 6,347 primary school teachers possess a degree with a minimum grade of C+ at KCSE and C+ in their main teaching subjects as of July 2020.
“Approximately 1,250,649 learners enrolled at Grade 4 in 2020 will transit to Junior secondary school (Grade 7) as the first cohort of the 2-6-3-3-3 while the 1,320,395 Standard Six cohort of 2020 will transition to Form One under 8-4-4 system in 2023,” reads the CBC task force report.
Promotion and deployment of primary school teachers to junior secondary schools will be cheaper than conducting fresh recruitment. TSC will deploy 1,000 p1 graduate teachers to secondary school this financial year (2021 – 2022).
In order to realise a 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary schools, TSC advertised 1,000 deployment jobs in 2019 and 2020. TSC also advertised 1,000 deployment posts for PTE certificate holders in July this year.
Those successfully deployed will begin at job grade C2 at a salary scale of 34,955 per month then move to the job grade C3 following completion of 3 years as specified in Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) for teachers.
“Successful candidates under this category shall be appointed at T-Scale 7, Grade C2 under the Career Progression Guidelines for Teachers and shall be deployed to secondary schools where vacancies exist,” TSC said in the advert.
Macharia said 1,000 qualified primary school teachers will be promoted to secondary schools. Those wishing to be promoted and deployed to teach in secondary schools she said must possess P1 certificates.
“They must also have attained at least C+ (Plus) mean grade at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) or its equivalent and C+ (Plus) in the two teaching subjects or its equivalent,” said Macharia.
“Successful candidates under this category shall be appointed at T-Scale 7, Grade C2 under the Career Progression Guidelines for Teachers and shall be deployed to secondary schools where vacancies exist.”
This means teachers opposed to the CPGs are not qualified or may at least not be considered for the slots.
At least 36,000 new teachers will be required to teach in JSS with TSC being on record saying that approximately 25,000 teachers will retire in two years time. Among these teachers, half of them are above 59 years of age according to KUPPET.
“Our finding is that as of November 2020, the teaching service has 25,000 teachers aged 58 and above…meaning Kenya is facing a deep teacher shortage that calls for radical measures to address,” said the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) secretary-general Akello Misori.
The National Treasury allocated Ksh2.5 billion towards the recruitment of new teachers. TSC says it needs about 100,000 teachers to fill the staffing gaps and take care of increased enrolments.
In a July report tabled in Parliament before the reopening of schools, TSC boss Nancy Macharia stated that the commission urgently needed Sh17 billion to hire 26,000 teachers to manage increased enrolment under the 100 per cent transition.
TSC also said it required an extra Sh8.1 billion yearly to hire 12,500 teachers to fill the normal shortage. “Under normal staffing, the commission needed 50,504 teachers to support the existing staff establishment,” Macharia told MPs.
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