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Irene Githinji @gitshee

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) was yesterday racing against time to ensure 8,914 tutors are recruited and posted to secondary schools immediately.

TSC Secretary Nancy Macharia said that interviews for most of the teachers are underway in various parts of the country.

“To ease the teacher’s workload, the TSC is working round the clock to ensure that 8,914 teachers are recruited and posted to schools during the first term to start working immediately,” said Macharia.

Once the recruitment exercise is completed, she said the commission will immediately recruit 6,000 interns to further address the teacher shortage.

The government allocated the teachers’ employer Sh2.5 billion this financial year for recruitment.

Few transfers

In total, TSC has recruited 28,700 teachers since the 100 per cent transition policy became effective in 2018 at a cost of about Sh14.4 billion.

Macharia speech was read on her behalf by TSC Director of Quality Assurance Reuben Nthamburi during the launch of Elimu Scholarship Programm.

She told teachers to brace themselves to receive additional learners into their Form One classes, which is being implemented under the 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary education.

Macharia said TSC recognises the hard times that teachers have gone through over the last 14 months occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a result, she said the commission has deliberately limited the number of transfers for teachers to ensure stability in all public schools.

“Only a few transfers will be tolerated owing to health and natural attribution conditions.

The commission has through the recently signed Collective Bargaining Agreement with the teachers union, resolved to avoid transfers that can destabilise families,” said Macharia.

As roll-out for the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) enters Grade 5 next week, Macharia assured Kenyans that TSC has trained teachers adequately to handle the roll-out adding that TSC thus confident of a smooth implementation.

She also said that the commission is aware that for the first time since March 2020 when schools were closed due to Covid-19, all the 15 million learners will be in their classes next term as the 2021 school calendar commences next week.

This is a departure from the situation that has been in the schools since October 2020, when partial reopening started.

She said the upshot of the full resumption of learning next week, is that the workload of teachers will be much higher compared to the last 10 months.

The TSC has since urged teachers to be resilient and step up their efforts to uphold high standards of professionalism and quality teaching in schools.