The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will on February start to pay a total of 20,000 teachers it recently recruited on a one year internship term for junior secondary schools (JSS).
This was revealed after details emerged the Commission received late the casualty returns for most of the teachers who reported to schools on 6th January.
Also TSC is in the process of moving 46,000 teachers who were on internship terms and were confirmed to permanent and pensionable (pnp) payroll in January.
School Heads Of Institutions (HOI) have been implicated in delays in submitting online casualty which is necessary for processing the teachers salary before payroll closes.
TSC already closed its January payroll and teachers in pnp are lined up to get enhanced salaries as the Commission will pay January salaries with leave allowance.
The JSS interns who majority are science teachers will on February get retooled on the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) and Competency Based Assessments (CBA).
TSC is facing serious teacher shortage and currently requires a total of 72,422 teachers to address the staffing crisis in JSS.
TSC CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia said the Commission requires a total of 149,350 teachers to handle Grade 7, 8 and 9.
Macharia said currently TSC has employed 76,928 teachers in junior secondary representing 51.5% of the requirement.
These are the 20,000 JSS interns. 39,550 JSS teachers who were first recruited on internship terms but have since been confirmed.
8,378 P1 teachers who were deployed to JSS in 2023 and 2024 and 9,000 JSS teachers recruited on permanent and pensionable terms.
Macharia said TSC has so far retooled a total of 229,292 teachers on CBC and CBA since April 2019.
She said a total of 60,642 JSS teachers have been retooled from May 2023 to November 2024.
The Commission is under pressure to address a looming teacher crisis in JSS in January as currently the teacher to class ratio is 1:1;
TSC plans to deploy 6,000 PTE teachers to JSS in April to help address the teacher shortage
The Teacher Internship Programme is a one year programme meant to equip and sustain competencies of persons entering the teaching service.
The programme targets unemployed registered teachers to be assigned to learning institutions where their teaching experience will be enhanced through mentorship, coaching and exposure to practical teaching experience.
The internship period will be for twelve months though majority of the recent intern teachers have served for two years.
Teacher internship is not a remunerative engagement. However, interns attached to Junior Secondary schools will be eligible for a monthly stipend of Kshs. 20 ,000/=.
The stipend will be paid subject to statutory deductions like NHIF, Housing levy, and NSSF where applicable.
On successful completion of the Internship Programme, teacher interns will be awarded a certificate.
In this years scoresheet for recruitment of 46,000 teachers on permanent and pensionable terms, TSC awarded 50 marks to teachers who served on internship terms thus making conversion to pnp for those who served on internship automatic.
TSC in December advertised replacement jobs and opened the doors for intern teachers to apply for the 8,707 replacements slots.
