Primary school teachers have started to receive letters of deployment to secondary schools as the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) usher in new changes.
Keep checking this article for changes, we are working to post evidence of deployment letters by teachers who received in July.
Also note that we are working on this article to establish the deployments made by TSC.
This is shocking especially because most P1 teachers are still waiting for official advertisement for this year deployment from TSC. However its an election year, anything is possible.
TSC has a plan to deploy practicing P1 teachers, who qualify to teach in secondary school, to teach in various secondary schools with vacancies.
The Commission started to implement this policy in the year 2019 where it deploys 1,000 P1 teachers each year to teach in secondary schools.
Despite stopping automatic promotion of teachers who upgraded their certificates in January 2014, TSC still deploys 1,000 PTE teachers each year to teach in secondary schools.
A total of 3,000 P1 graduate teachers were promoted to teach in secondary schools in the last three years.
TSC advertised 1,000 deployment posts in 2019 and another 1,000 in September 2020. The Commission advertised 1,000 more slots for deployment last year.
However the Commission has not made public through advertisement deployment slots for this year. Primary school teachers have waited for the advert so they can start applying.
TSC was engaged in talks with officials of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) last week on Wednesday till Friday.
Knut led by its secretary general Collins Oyuu was pushing the Commission to allow primary school teachers who acquired higher academic qualification through in-service training to teach in junior secondary.
Knut specifically wanted TSC to allow primary school teachers with degree in secondary option but C (plain) in KCSE to be promoted to teach in those schools.
Knut also want TSC to recognize PTE teachers with Diploma in secondary option during deployment exercise.
Junior secondary involves Grade 7, 8 and 9. The current Grade 6 learners will join junior secondary in January 2023.
TSC agreed to deploy primary school teachers to teach in junior high but on condition. TSC insists that the teachers must meet the requirements for deployment to secondary schools.
According to TSC for teachers to be deployed to teach in junior secondary one must;
i) Be a Kenyan citizen;
ii) Be a holder of a P1 Certificate;
iii) Be a holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Education with 2 teaching subjects;
iv) Must have attained at least C+ (Plus) mean grade at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) or its equivalent and C+ (Plus) or it’s equivalent in the two teaching subjects;
v) Must be serving under Teachers Service Commission.
Data from the Commission revealed that there were about 218,077 teachers in public primary schools as at 2020.
21,632 teachers (9,821 male and 11,811 female) had Diploma qualifications, while 17,930 teachers (8,627 male and 9,303 female) had Bachelor Degrees.
About 491 teachers had Masters and Doctoral degrees (197 male and 294 female) while the rest had certificate qualifications.
In Post Primary institutions, there were about 113,155 teachers as at 2020. 1, 725 teachers (909 male teachers and 816 female teachers) had Masters and Doctoral Degrees (PhD).
Those deployed from primary school to teach in secondary schools start in job group C2 and later move to job group C3 after completing three years.
From July 2021 a deployed teacher in job group C2 takes home shs 34,955 at minimum in basic pay and shs 43,694 at maximum.
The teacher enjoys a commuter allowance of shs 5,000 a house allowance of shs 7,500 for those who are not in any municipality and a leave allowance of shs 6,000 paid once yearly. Those in hardship areas enjoy hardship allowance of shs 10,900.