News

TSC requires Sh17b to hire new teachers

Thursday, February 20th, 2020 07:39 | By
TSC chief executive officer Nancy Macharia. Photo/File

Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has said it requires an additional Sh17 billion to recruit new teachers in the country on the day it emerged that the teacher shortage in both secondary and primary schools stands at 104, 087.

Chief Executive officer Nancy Macharia told MPs  they will not be able to employ new teachers as the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) has allocated Sh 3.2 billion for recruitment of additional teachers out of which Sh2 billion will be for normal recruitment and Sh 1.2 billion will be for recruitment of interns.

The funds, said Macharia ,will only be able  enough to employ 5,000 new teachers for a period of seven months and 10, 000 interns for nine months.

She said: “The commission projected recruitment of 40, 000 interns at a total cost of Sh 4.8 billion and normal recruitment of 25,000 teachers at a cost of Sh15.4billion. The financing gap their stands at Sh17 billion.”

Macharia told MPs that the commission had resulted to employing intern teachers because they have no adequate funds to employ teachers on permanent and pensionable basis.

She described the teacher shortage as alarming adding that teachers are over stretched for overseeing Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) as well as implementing the outgoing 844 syllabus.

According to her 6,000 interns have been deployed to secondary schools and 4,000 to primary schools while 3000 teachers hired on permanent basis have been deployed to primary schools and 1,000 others who had higher qualification moved to secondary schools 

She said: “The only reason we brought the issue of internship is because we have no money to hire on permanent and pensionable basis yet every child had a right to go to school. The recruitment of intern teachers is only a short-term intervention we always advocate for permanent teachers.”

Her remarks came even as it emerged that of the 104,087 teacher shortage in the country, 55, 914 are from secondary schools and 48,173 are from primary.

Out of the 55, 914 teacher shortage in secondary school, Kakamega County leads with the highest teacher shortage at 3,473, followed by Bungoma with 3,207, Nakuru 2,597, Bomet 2,168, Homabay 2,202, Kitui  2,125, Kisii, 2072 and Makueni 2036

With regards to teacher shortage in primary schools, of the 48,173 teacher shortage, Kakamega leads with at 3,544, followed by Kitui  2,974, Bungoma with 2,813, West Pokot 2,489, Narok 2272, and Kilifi 2,050. Consequently, the commission told the MPs that they require an additional Sh1.3billion for the CBC having received only Sh300 million in the last financial year.

More on News


ADVERTISEMENT

RECOMMENDED STORIES News


ADVERTISEMENT