Teachers Service Commission Director of Quality Assurance Dr Reuben Nthamburi.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is strategically shifting its employment focus, targeting Bachelor of Education Technology graduates to staff the new Senior School level under the competency based education (CBE).
TSC Director of Quality Assurance Dr Reuben Nthamburi revealed that the move is primarily aimed at meeting the specialised teaching demands of the CBE’s practical and technically-focused pathways.
“The Bachelor of Education Technology (B.Ed. Tech.), like the one in Moi University, now becomes critical for the commission,” Dr Nthamburi stated.
The TSC official said the Bachelor of Education Technology graduates have not been employed for quite a while.
The decision comes as the country faces a notable shortage of teachers in technical subjects, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) pathway.
TSC data underscores the urgent need for specialised teachers to support the Senior School pathways. The STEM Pathway is expected to absorb about 60 per cent of the 1.1 million learners (roughly 677,144 students), and the TSC estimates a need for 35,111 teachers across 15,046 classes.
Social Sciences pathway requires 14,630 teachers, while the Arts and Sports pathway requires some 8,778 teachers.
The Bachelor of Education Technology degree is specifically aligned with the skills required for the STEM and technical pathways, making its holders essential for the successful implementation of the CBE curriculum.
Technical vacancies
While TSC scrambles to fill technical vacancies, it acknowledges a massive unemployment crisis among humanities graduates.
Dr Nthamburi cited a dramatic example — when TSC advertises for a single History and CRE (Christian Religious Education) position, they receive approximately 5,000 applications.
Dr Nthamburi urged universities and Teacher Training Colleges to rethink their training strategies to balance supply with demand. “How do we help so that we have a balance?” asked Dr Nthamburi.
Adding to the complexity, the commission has a register of over 900,000 teachers to teach in primary, secondary and Early Childhood Development, yet only 434,337 are currently employed. This includes a significant number of registered but unemployed primary teachers, some aged 50 and above.
However, ECD is a devolved function with counties handling their employment.
Dr Nthamburi added that recently, teachers' unions and headteachers' associations went to State House to meet President William Ruto, and the issue of unemployed teachers aged over 45 years came up.
“The President said we need data of teachers who are aged 45 and above. We have since discovered we have quite a number of them who are registered but still unemployed,” said Dr Nthamburi.
To mitigate the high numbers of unemployed graduates, TSC has formulated a policy to encourage educators to seek opportunities abroad.
Export teachers
“We have come up with a policy to export teachers. We have agreed that teachers who are unemployed should be facilitated to pursue opportunities in various countries abroad,” Dr Nthamburi said.
Meanwhile, despite the large pool of registered teachers, public schools across the country remain understaffed, forcing heavy reliance on Board of Management (BoM) teachers.
The TSC official noted that in some schools, the number of BoM teachers whose salaries are paid by parents can be as high as 20.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba.
“When Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba went to one of the schools here (Coast region), he found there are 20 BoM teachers paid by the parents,” said the TSC official.
This starkly highlights the persistent absorption gap between the number of graduates from universities and TTCs and the number of positions the commission can afford to fill.
TSC data shows the current employed staff include primary schools (220,181), secondary schools (129,847), junior schools (52,000 permanent and 20,000 interns), teacher training colleges (1,338) and the Kenya Institute of Special Education (59).
A recent TSC census found that 110,920 teachers work in private institutions across the 47 counties.
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