TSC budgets Sh74b for new teachers

Teachers Service Commission (TSC) seeks to spend Sh74 billion to recruit at least 111,870 teachers in the next five years to bridge the deficit.

In a report tabled before the Senate National Cohesion and Integration Committee chaired by Marsabit MP Mohammed Chute, the commission chief executive Nancy Macharia said TSC is faced with a teacher shortage of 111,870 teachers (47,329 at the primary level and 64,541 in post-primary institutions) countrywide.

Budgetary allocations

“To address the teacher shortage the Commission requires to recruit 111,870 teachers over a period of five years. To achieve this the Commission requires annual budgetary allocation of Sh14.8 billion for recruitment of teachers as an intervention measure,” said Macharia.

She said that the Commission has over the years implemented strategies that are geared towards optimal teacher staffing taking into account among other factors, budgetary provision, demand and supply of teachers, and existing establishment.

The strategies include annual requests for budgetary allocation for the recruitment of additional teachers’ engagement of teacher interns and recruitment of teachers on contractual terms in Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Lamu counties.

The commission also employs the strategy of immediate replacement of teachers who leave the State agency through natural attrition and implements the adoption of a decentralised demand-driven approach to recruitment.

Vacancies availability

It stated that the Commission transfers teachers who apply for transfers back to their home counties subject to availability of vacancies.

Macharia stated that as at April, 2023 the Commission had affected a total of 15,824 transfers of teachers to their preferred counties.

In in carrying out transfers the Commission considers other extrinsic factors such as the age of the teacher, health status, teachers with alternative abilities, transfers on promotion, proximity to home County, size and performance of schools and category of schools and family considerations.

Yesterday, Macharia told the Chute-led committee that during the recent recruitment of teachers, the Kalenjin community were the majority at 4,048.

The commission also recruited teachers from the Luhya (3,187), Kikuyu (2,913), Luo (2,576), Kisii (1,737) and Meru (1,122) communities respectively.

Macharia, however, promised to provide a detailed report of all the 36, 000 teachers in June after the commission concludes updating its records.

Macharia said the teachers’ employer will recruit an additional 20, 000 teachers in the next financial year if their budget proposal is approved by the National Assembly.

She noted that of the 20,990 whose recruitment has been finalised, the age distribution ranges between 21 to 56 years with the majority being 28 years old.

Last week, TSC revealed that half of the country’s 346,760 tutors on the payroll are drawn from three ethnic communities, highlighting the disparities in the country’s education system.

TSC’s data presented to Parliament shows the Kalenjin community accounts for 59,538 of its employees, almost tying with the Kikuyu (59,010) and the Luhya (52,882), all totalling 171,430 teachers, nearly half of the commission’s workforce.