Even as TSC plans to hire more teachers to plug shortage before schools experience full reopening early January 2021, more TSC County Directors have called on unemployed teachers to visit their offices and register.
TSC said it immediately requires Sh25 billion to effectively prepare for January school opening.
The Commission said it plans to recruit 12,000 additional intern teachers ahead of the January 2021 full reopening.
This will bring to 23,574, the total number of teacher interns hired since last year.
TSC County Directors have been calling on teachers who are yet to be employed by the Commission to visit their TSC offices in their respective Sub Counties and register ahead of the planned recruitment.
Kisii TSC County Director is the latest to issue the directive to the teachers to register with their nearest Sub County offices.
However its not clear why some counties turn teachers away and refute the claims of registering them as untrue.
Madam Mwanaidi a practising teacher in Mombasa said she was turned away when she went for the exercise in her her Sub County in Mombasa.
“When I got the news of unemployed teachers to register in their Sub County I visited mine here in Mombasa but I was turned away. They said its fake news. I don’t know where is the truth cause my collegues are doing it in their regions,” she said.
Last week Kericho TSC County Director ordered for immediate registration of the teachers.
“All teachers who are not employed by the Teachers Service Commission are adviced to register with their nearest TSC Sub County Office. Sub County Directors please coordinate the process and submit the data in the excel format given by noon tomorrow 6/11/2020,” read one of the memo by Kericho TSC County Director.
The details required include TSC number, ID number, Year of Graduation, Mobile Phone number and Subject combination for high school teachers.
Early October Teachers Service Commission (TSC) said it urgently requires some Sh4 billion to replace about 8,000 teachers who are set to retire in two months.
TSC report revealed that the teachers will no longer be on the payroll after December 31, upon attaining the mandatory retirement age (60 years for regular and 65 years for disabled).
This means that the teachers’ employer will require more resources in addition to the Sh2.5 billion presently being used to hire new teachers across the country.
In September 2020 the Teachers Service Commission advertised 5,000 vacancies in secondary schools to support the 100 percent transition from primary to secondary schools.
The teachers recruited will serve on Permanent and Pensionable terms of service.
TSC also advertised 1,000 posts for teachers who wished to teach in primary schools.
To qualify for recruitment, a candidate was required to meet the following basic requirements:
i) Be a Kenyan citizen;
ii) Must be a holder of a P1 certificate;
iii) Must be a registered teacher with the Teachers Service Commission.
Successful candidates will be posted to serve in any part of the country and not necessarily in the county where they were recruited.
In 2019 TSC released details which showed at least 300,000 trained and registered teachers are jobless.
The number of unemployed teachers was almost the same as those with jobs which stands at 317,069, according to the Commission’s 2019-2023 strategic plan launched in May 2019.
TSC said a good number of Kenyans trained as teachers but failed to register with the commission or they have taken up jobs in other fields locally and abroad.
Documents from the Commission showed that TSC had already registered 37,000 teachers from January to December 2019.
The Constitution bars anyone who is not registered with the TSC to join the teaching service.
“Teachers register online using the TSC website after completing their studies in universities and colleges,” a top official said.
TSC Act section 30(1) also allows the commission to deregister teachers due to death and or indiscipline.
“Some 22,961 dead teachers have been removed from the Teachers Service Commission in the last 29 years up to 2016,” the Economic Survey 2018 released this year adds.
Last month Teachers Service Commission (TSC) deregistered 30 teachers from different schools in the country in a Gazette Notice released on Friday, October 23, 2020.
The teachers were removed from the national register in accordance with Section 30 (1) (e) of the Teachers Service Commission Act.
“The commission may, after inquiry, cause to be removed from the register the name of any person who the commission has directed should be removed as a result of disciplinary proceedings instituted under this Act,” the law reads.
The listed teachers have cases of sexual offenses on learners raised against them and were issued notice letters between September 14 and 25, 2020.
The tutors will not be able to teach in any of Kenya’s public or private schools after being removed from the TSC register.
Private learning institutions also require applicants to submit their TSC registration details before being hired.
According to the TSC Act, school heads or owners who employ unregistered teachers are guilty of an offense and liable to a fine of not less than Ksh 100,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both.
In October 2019, the commission gazetted a list of 36 teachers who were dismissed and removed from the register over indiscipline.
The commission’s strategic plan showed that the government recruited 28,843 teachers in the last five years. Primary schools benefited by 8,390 while 20,453 were recruited for secondary schools.
Teachers Service Commission chief executive officer Nancy Macharia told education stakeholders during the launch of its plan last year that the TSC had employed 317,069 teachers by June 2019.
They were deployed to 30,892 public educational institutions.
They include 217,291 teachers serving in 22,263 public primary schools and 99,778 teachers serving in 8,629 public post-primary institutions across the nation.
The TSC said that the learners population served by teachers stood at eight million in public primary schools and two million in public post-primary schools.
The plan showed that the TSC estimates an overall teacher shortage of 96,345, which include 38,054 in primary schools and 58,291 in post-primary schools.
The TSC projected the shortages are expected to rise to 84,478 for secondary schools and 34,941 for primary schools by 2023.
Appreciate the efforts ofT.S.C but we hope that we will be considered for even internship after the long wait over 10yrs.we were not informed even when some individuals were given forms to fill,just realized a few days ago that forms had already bn submitted,plz try to be transparent.
Consider teachers aged above 35 yrs for automatic employment as long as they are qualified and have never been employed before in any sector.