The Teachers Service Commission has unveiled new plans to promote 5,000 primary school teachers with C+ and degrees to the new junior secondary before next year.
This hasty move is an attempt to accommodate the newly created Junior Secondary Schools under the CBC format to address the shortage of teachers.
There is high speculation of higher deployment slots next year. This is for a double transition in 2023 that will require more secondary school teachers.
It is also reported that more than a thousand practicing P1 teachers who will be promoted to secondary schools by September next year.
These teachers set for profit are those who reportedly submitted their applications online and retrained their hard copies with their respective TSC county offices when Grade 6 moves to Grade 7 in 2023, the current Class VI learners. Will also be enrolled in Form One after appearing in Kenya. Certificate of Elementary Education Examination (KCPE) under 8-4-4 system.
The Junior Secondary School will consist of grades 7, 8 and 9. Leading students under the new 2-6-3-3-3 Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) system will transition to junior secondary school in 2023 after appearing in Grade 6 national level examinations.
The Ministry of Education has since selected a number of primary schools for upgradation into junior secondary schools. Those with better infrastructure will be upgraded to host the Junior Secondary School (JSS) wing.
Under-enrolled schools and schools in close proximity will be merged and one of the institute’s infrastructure will be improved. Some schools will have a combination of both primary and junior secondary in the same campus.
It is still a matter of debate whether the Teachers Service Commission will relax its strict guidelines for practicing P1 teachers, given that teachers graduating from various institutions do not achieve the minimum KCSE grades required by the TSC to teach in secondary school.
TSC is only deploying P1 teachers with degree in secondary school options and teachers who have obtained a minimum grade of at least C+ in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
In addition, the above teachers must have at least a C+ in their subjects of specialization and complete the minimum number of teaching units required for a bachelor’s degree in education. The TSC database shows that 6,347 primary school teachers have degrees in KCSE and C+. A minimum grade of C+ in their core teaching subjects as of July 2020.
“In 2020 approximately 1,250,649 learners enrolled in Grade 4 will be transferred to Junior Secondary School (Grade 7) as the first group of 2-6-3-3-3, compared to 1,320,395 in 2020 in the standard six group of 8. Will transition to Form One under .-2023 in -4-4 system,” reads the report of the CBC task force. Promotion and posting of primary school teachers to junior secondary schools will be cheaper than recruiting new ones. TSC secondary in this fiscal year (2021 – 2022) The school will deploy 1,000 p1 graduate teachers.
To realize 100 percent transition from primary to secondary schools, TSC advertised 1,000 deployment jobs in 2019 and 2020.
Those who are successfully deployed will start in job grade C2 at a pay scale of Rs 34,955 per month, then move to job grade C3 after completion of 3 years, as specified in the Career Progress Guidelines for Teachers (CPG) .
