As the Ministry of Education plans to unveil the 2021 academic calendar as directed by President Uhuru Kenyatta, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) says that it plans to hire at least 12,000 teachers before January 2021.
“This will bring to 23,574, the total number of teacher interns hired since last year,” said TSC in a statement as it indicated it needed at least 25 billion shillings to effectively repair for the reopening of schools.
According to TSC, the commission needs another 17 billion shillings to hire some 26,000 teachers to manage secondary schools under the 100 percent enrollment initiative by President Uhuru Kenyatta through the Ministry of Education.
TSC also needs 8.1 billion shillings to hire 12,000 teachers to plug into the normal shortage. Nancy Macharia, the CEO of TSC told Members of Parliament that the commission had projected to hire at least 12,000 teachers annually for the next five years.
“This target has not been met due to inadequate budgetary provisions. It is because of this that the commission has so far only managed to employ 23,700 teachers since 2017,” she said.
The commission, under the current financial year, was given 2.5 billion shillings to hire 5,000 intern teachers and a further 2.4 billion shillings under the Economic Stimulus Program to hire additional 12,000 intern teachers.
TSC says it is planning to train 118,000 teachers next month on the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) at a cost of one billion shillings. In 2019, the commission says it trained 339,752 teachers on CBC at a cost of 400 million shillings.
55,000 teachers have been promoted this year with other 3,900 scheduled for interviews. 460 teachers have already been interviewed and set to receive their promotional letters “soon.”
President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered the closure of all learning institutions to cut down on the spread of Covid-19. Grade 4, Standard 8, and Form 4 students resumed learning in preparation for the national exams set for March 2021.
READ: TSC Presents New Teachers’ Salaries And Allowances Increments