TSC to hire 5,000 tutors, 10,000 interns to cut shortage
The government will recruit 5,000 new secondary school teachers and deploy 10,000 interns to address shortage of tutors, an indication of the pressure caused by the government’s push for a 100 per cent transition rate from primary school.
Teachers Service Commission (TSC) chief executive officer Nancy Macharia yesterday said the government was cognizant of the fact that increased student enrolment in secondary school had led to serious understaffing.
“We recognise that increased enrolment in public secondary schools has strained teachers with increased workload. To address this, the TSC recruited 5,000 secondary school teachers this year, and is in the process of hiring 10,000 interns to ease the shortage,” Macharia said during the release of this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam results.
A recent assessment by the TSC showed that 49,750 more teachers are needed for the increased population in secondary schools. An acute shortage was registered in both primary and secondary schools in Kakamega (6,408), Bungoma (5,186), Kitui (4,539), Homa Bay (3,888), Migori (3,716) and Bomet (1,522).
Macharia also announced the commission will replace teachers who leave through natural attrition on a continuous basis even as she urged teachers “to do all they can to ensure high quality learning”.
To motivate the teachers, TSC said that it had started the procession of negotiating the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement, which is expected to improve teachers’ pay.
“We recognise that our teachers need to get better terms of service even as we demand more from them. We have already initiated the process of negotiating the 2021-2025 CBA. We hope we can conclude the CBA in good time,” she said.
