The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is seeking funds to recruit 75,000 teachers by 2025 to reduce the curriculum burden in both primary and secondary schools as well as to address the existing staff shortage.
In addition the commission plans to hire 36,000 intern teachers for both primary and secondary schools in the same period.
These are some of the proposals contained in the Education Sector Report: Medium Term Expenditure Framework 2022/2023 – 2024/2025 that were referred to Parliament for consideration before the 2022 budget allocation.
The Commission’s bold strategy seeks to enhance resource management, professional development, equity and access to quality teaching standards over the next three years.
The document shows that TSC plans to hire 39,000 teachers in secondary schools between 2022 and 2025, if the national treasury provides the necessary resources.
This shows that TSC has established 13 measurable action points that aim to drive the successful delivery of its critical programs including effective staffing of schools.
The commission has received an additional budget of approximately sh15 billion in the 2022 – 2023 fiscal year.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani had allocated an additional Sh14.9 billion to the TSC, whose budget has increased from Sh281.7 billion to Sh296.6 billion in the new fiscal year.
TSC says it will use the money to hire more teachers to ease the curriculum burden for teachers.
In a report, which was submitted by the Parliamentary Budget Office to the National Assembly’s Education and Research Committee, it shows that the TSC has set aside its increased allocation of Sh15 billion to 13,000 secondary school teachers and 9,000 interns to deal with the exits. planned to use. Expected increase in enrollment when Junior Secondary starts in January 2023.
Commission’s petition 2.5 billion was also approved by the Parliament to provide employment to 5,000 teachers.
Staffing has been a perennial milestone in TSC’s neck, with chief executive officer Nancy Macharia revealing that the service lacks 114,581 teachers in training colleges, special needs education, curriculum support and primary and secondary schools.
Dr. Macharia attributed the situation to inadequate funding and implementation of the policy of 100% transition of learners from primary to secondary education.
“Due to budget constraints, the government is giving employment to 5,000 teachers every year which is a drop in the ocean,” said Macharia.
This has put pressure on the existing teaching force which is not commensurate with the enrollment of learners,” Macharia told the heads of institutions in Kisumu in December 2021.
A large number of job-droppers either retire, resign or die, while others are dismissed in various disciplinary cases.
Dr. Macharia said that Kakamega and Bungoma counties have the biggest shortage of teachers in the country.
In January this year, TSC had advertised 2,945 vacancies to replace teachers who were out of service through natural retirement. In the advertisement, 2,053 posts went to primary schools and 892 posts went to secondary schools.
The commission posted a total of 1,995 new intern teachers in the schools in a single month. TSC extended internship contracts for 4,005 in-service intern teachers, whose one-year term ended in December 2021. TSC hires at least 6,000 intern teachers each year.
Also in January this year TSC started virtual lessons to help address the shortage of teachers and provide quality education to the learners.
However, it emerged that Internet connectivity for ICT needs to be increased for the planning of schools. Many schools lack connectivity.
In this program teachers from schools with good staff with better facilities will share their classes with other institutions.
TSC Chief Executive Nancy Macharia said the prolonged learning disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore the need to continually empower teachers to respond to emerging trends and challenges.
During COVID 19, most schools were unable to access online lessons due to inadequate facilities and poor internet connectivity.
Macharia said the commission has now accelerated its online teaching and learning, citing the Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project.
The program is in the pilot phase, targeting 12 schools in 10 counties.
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and English will be telecast live from the host schools under the pilot programme.
During the two-month pilot phase, livestreaming will focus on science, math and English lessons, delivered from two leading schools.
Alliance Girls High School and Machakos Boys, well-staffed institutions with improved facilities, will see their teachers share lessons with students at satellite schools in 10 counties.
Two national schools are linked with satellite schools taken from Isiolo, Kilifi, Bomet, Tata Taveta, Makueni and Kisii.
Macharia said that the lessons will be interactive and collaborative through video and sound and the learners will have a complete learning experience.
The program form targets two students. The President of Kenya Secondary School Heads Association, Kahi Indimulli, termed the project as a game changer.
“It provides an opportunity to share knowledge, tools and equipment. It is a shared opportunity in the approach of learning and teaching,” Indimulli said.
However, he added that schools would need high-speed internet connectivity. But as TSC introduced the online lesson program, teacher unions maintain quality teaching, which also requires proper staffing.
“Counties are not equal. Schools are not the same. We have gaps. Technology cannot replace teachers,” said KNUT boss Collins Oyuu.
