The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has been urged to make use of primary school teachers to address teacher shortage crisis in junior secondary schools (JSS).

The Commission has been urged to drop its hard stance on academic requirements for deploying P1 teachers to JSS.

Instead TSC has been asked to retool the PTE teachers and allow them teach the Grade 7, 8 and 9 learners who are facing serious teacher shortage.

Both politicians and officials of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) have asked TSC to reconsider its position for the sake of learners.

This comes after details emerged TSC has failed to get the required number of qualified primary school teachers to deploy to JSS in its ongoing application for deployment.

In the deployment exercise TSC wants practicing P1 teachers to have degree in secondary option with at least C+ in KCSE and C+ in two teaching subjects.

TSC wants a total of 6,000 primary school teachers to deploy them to work in junior secondary.

The Commission has been criticized for overlooking P1 teachers who are best suited to teach subjects such as Music, Art and Craft, P.E which JSS teachers are struggling with.

TSC CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia revealed the Commission requires a total of 72,422 teachers to address the teacher shortage in JSS.

Macharia said the Commission requires a total of 149,350 teachers to handle Grade 7, 8 and 9.

She said currently TSC has employed 76,928 teachers in junior secondary representing 51.5% of the requirement.

These are 39,550 junior secondary school 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.

The government also allocated sh 4.8 billion which TSC used to recruit 20,000 JSS teachers on internship terms.

Macharia said TSC has so far retooled a total of 229,292 teachers on Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) and Competency Based Assessment (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 as currently the teacher to class ratio is 1:1;

The Commission has been deploying P1 teachers since 2019 as a form of promotion after numerous complaints of stagnation from primary school teachers who upgraded their academic certificates.

In 2019, 2020 and 2021 a total of 1,000 P1 teachers were deployed each year to secondary schools while in 2022 to 2024 around 8,378 teachers were deployed to serve the first cohorts of the CBC in JSS.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has been urged to make use of primary school teachers to address teacher shortage crisis in junior secondary schools (JSS).

The Commission has been urged to drop its hard stance on academic requirements for deploying P1 teachers to JSS.

Instead TSC has been asked to retool the PTE teachers and allow them teach the Grade 7, 8 and 9 learners who are facing serious teacher shortage.

Both politicians and officials of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) have asked TSC to reconsider its position for the sake of learners.

This comes after details emerged TSC has failed to get the required number of qualified primary school teachers to deploy to JSS in its ongoing application for deployment.

In the deployment exercise TSC wants practicing P1 teachers to have degree in secondary option with at least C+ in KCSE and C+ in two teaching subjects.

TSC wants a total of 6,000 primary school teachers to deploy them to work in junior secondary.

The Commission has been criticized for overlooking P1 teachers who are best suited to teach subjects such as Music, Art and Craft, P.E which JSS teachers are struggling with.

TSC CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia revealed the Commission requires a total of 72,422 teachers to address the teacher shortage in JSS.

Macharia said the Commission requires a total of 149,350 teachers to handle Grade 7, 8 and 9.

She said currently TSC has employed 76,928 teachers in junior secondary representing 51.5% of the requirement.

These are 39,550 junior secondary school 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.

The government also allocated sh 4.8 billion which TSC used to recruit 20,000 JSS teachers on internship terms.

Macharia said TSC has so far retooled a total of 229,292 teachers on Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) and Competency Based Assessment (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 as currently the teacher to class ratio is 1:1;

The Commission has been deploying P1 teachers since 2019 as a form of promotion after numerous complaints of stagnation from primary school teachers who upgraded their academic certificates.

In 2019, 2020 and 2021 a total of 1,000 P1 teachers were deployed each year to secondary schools while in 2022 to 2024 around 8,378 teachers were deployed to serve the first cohorts of the CBC in JSS.