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The Teachers Service Commission should do everything in its power to shield the proposed recruitment of 35,000 teachers from interference by politicians.

The only criteria that should be used during the recruitment should be merit so that those who are duly qualified are picked in line with the guidelines that the employer has set out, tough as they may be for many of the candidates.

If MPs are allowed to interfere with the process, there is a real risk that the appointments will be skewed based on loyalty to the politicians at the expense of qualification.

At any rate, if this happens, there is nothing to stop politicians from influencing the allocation of other government jobs in future. That is why TSC should enforce the rules it has shared with its staff and ensure that those involved in the recruitment at county level do not give MPs even an inch to influence who gets hired.

Teachers play a critical role in society — including as opinion shapers — and it is not difficult to understand why politicians want their allies hired. However, this will be a treacherous path because it will mean teachers whose views do not necessary align with those of politicians could be victimised even if they are qualified for the jobs they are seeking.

The recruitment should be viewed as a step towards rebalancing teacher allocation so that there is fair distribution of human resources across all public schools. This is critical now given that a new cohort of Junior Secondary School students will be joining Grade Seven in February and schools need teachers with the requisite skills to manage the pioneer class.

Politicians should restrict their role to providing a policy framework that will guide recruitment — as they did with the move to abolish delocalisation of teachers. After that, they should give TSC a free hand to do its job. Where the employer falls short, there are systems and institutions that can audit the process.

If MPs interfere, there is a risk that they will short-circuit the process and this will make it difficult to hold anyone to account since legislators also enjoy oversight powers and are highly unlikely to oversight themselves.

Simply put, politicians should get out of the way and allow due process to be followed.