The Teacher Service Commission (TSC) has announced that it will prioritize the recruitment of Junior Secondary school teachers in the upcoming mass recruitment of new teachers in January.
The presidential working party on education reforms had in their preliminary report directed the recruitment of 30,000 new teachers for the junior secondary expected to begin classes in January.
Speaking in Mombasa Friday after supervising the opening of exam papers for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) at the Nali DCC office, TSC CEO Nancy Macharia said that they were already facing a deficit of 68,000 teachers in secondary schools across the country.
“We shall use some of the new 30,000 teachers for junior secondary as well some for primary schools and the rest will go to the 8-4-4 students. These are the modalities we are working on so that in January we recruit these teachers,” said Macharia.
“We already have a deficit of 116,000 teachers in the country with the figure at secondary schools standing at 68,000,”
Macharia said that TSC has been employing 5,000 teachers every year adding that the recruitment of new 30,000 teachers in January will go a long way to reduce the deficit.
In March this year, the government announced the training of 60,000 teachers on the new Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) for Junior secondary.
Macharia said the training was halted for a while to allow
transition of government after the August elections adding that they will
resume immediately with much attention on grade 7 pupils.
“We had already begun training teachers because initially, junior secondary was to be domiciled in Secondary school we didn’t finish”
“Now that new government has settled in, we shall resume the trainings because we still have the money for the trainings starting with grade seven teachers,” she said.
Macharia said that the training will be phased because the time required for the training is not enough.
She however said that they were going to engage with all relevant education stakeholders to give teachers more time for training so that they are well-equipped.
“We can start now so that as we go to grade seven, they (teachers) don’t find new things, there are already teachers but they just need to be inducted a little bit into what is expected of them,” Macharia said.
A total of 884,263 students are sitting for this year’s KCSE exams.
Macharia said that they had deployed a total of 10,416 center managers as well as 11,332 supervisors and 49,127 invigilators country-wide.
“For the teachers involved, they have been vetted and are now expected to administer and get credible examinations,” said Macharia.
Education cabinet secretary Ezekiel Machogu on Monday assured the country that the government was committed to deliver credible national examinations for Grade 6 and Class 8 and all form four candidates.
He was speaking in Mombasa after officiating the opening of exam materials at the Mvita DCC offices.
Machogu said that the government has made all necessary preparations including training invigilators, supervisors, center managers and security personnel on what they are supposed to do.
“According to the preparations this year, we don’t expect to have even a single malpractice anywhere within the country. We expect a smooth examination period because we have made all the necessary preparations,” said Machogu.
A total of 3,416,048 students are sitting for their national examinations across the country this December.
About 1,287,597 Grade 6 students sat for their inaugural Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) with 1,244,188 sitting for their KCPE exams which ended on Wednesday.
Those sitting for the KCSE exams are 884,263.
Machogu said that there are 498 distribution centers in the country with over 20,000 examination centers where students are taking their examinations.
“We have also provided adequate transportation to each center including areas which are not accessible like parts of Tana River and Northeastern where we are using choppers to deliver the examination materials,” Machogu said.
