TSC ease delocalization policy for new teacher recruits

Teachers recruited in July this year may be a lucky lot as the Commission sources indicate they could post a number of them just within their home counties.

Already appointment letters for most counties including Kiambu, Kericho, Kwale, Siaya, Tana River and Kilifi are ready and some teachers maybe posted next week.

Insiders say teachers recruited as replacements are most likely to serve within the county of employment.

All teachers recruited in July are supposed to be posted to their new stations in September.

However some teachers may wait longer as the Commission plans to post some of them upto January 2023.

According to TSC recruitment roadmap successful teachers are to be posted to their new stations of work early September this year.

The employment forms filled by successful TSC recruits indicate that some teachers will have to wait upto January next year.

The Commission is under pressure to stop the delocalization policy which it started in 2017. Teachers say the policy is destroying their families and subjecting them to poverty.

Already the president elect Dr William Ruto has promised to end the teacher delocalization policy if he forms government. He said those who will be delocalized will be paid for it.

Ruto said he will abolish the delocalization policy by the TSC and replace it with a programme that will acknowledge that teachers are a national resource.

He said teachers will be at liberty to choose the counties and schools they want to work for. He promised to convert the current Teachers Management Institute to the Kenya School of Education to better manage the learning institutions.

“The domesticated teacher recruitment and deployment at entry-level will be per the

UNESCO teacher deployment practice which treats education as culture process conducted within a people’s culture context at the local level.” he said.

TSC is now struggling to deal with numerous transfer requests from delocalized teachers who want to go back to their home counties.

ROADMAP FOR RECRUITMENT OF TEACHERS – JULY, 2022

In the July 2022 recruitment advert TSC sought to hire a total of 14,460 teachers to plug the shortage in public schools.

The commission had declared 5,000 vacancies it intends to fill and 8,230 others to replace teachers who have exited service through natural attrition.

TSC also lined up 844 permanent positions for schools in the north. Through affirmative action, the jobs were earmarked for teachers from the region.

However last week TSC decried low turn-out for tutors’ recruitment in the vast Wajir County.

TSC county director James Ogongo said number of locals who turned up for the recruitment process was low.

This, Mr Ogongo said, was despite the commission re-advertising for the position for 325 P1 teachers to fill the vacancy left by teachers who left in 2020 due to insecurity in the region.

Among those who applied were 325 teachers for primary schools while only 39 sought secondary slots.

Of the 325 applicants for the primary schools, only four teachers are locals from the county with 321 being non-locals.