The government will next week advertise the recruitment of 20,000 teachers across the country, raising the number of tutors hired by the Kenya Kwanza administration to 56,000 in less than one year.
Teachers Service Commission chairperson Jamleck Muturi made the announcement yesterday during the ongoing Kenya Secondary School Head Teachers Association (Kessha) conference at the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Hall in Mombasa.
Dr Muturi said Sh4.6 billion has been set aside for recruitment, Sh1 billion for promotions and Sh1.3 billion for capacity building of the teachers on the competency-based curriculum.
The education sector received the highest share of the national government’s budget for the financial year starting July 1 at Sh628.6 billion, up from Sh544.4 billion.
“TSC got a good amount of money ... amounting to Sh323.7 billion ... Sh4.6 billion has been set aside for the recruitment of 20,000 teachers on contract. By next week, we will put up an advert so that qualified people can apply for these jobs,” said Dr Muturi.
Secondary school teachers on contract are paid Sh20,000 per month while those deployed to primary schools get Sh15,000. TSC last month announced that the terms of these teachers will change to permanent and pensionable in 2025.
Despite a major staffing shortage in schools, there are over 300,000 teachers on the TSC register who are unemployed.
“We shall advertise for the promotions but I don’t know why some teachers are very shy in applying for these promotions. We encourage you to apply so that we can promote you because we want a motivated teacher, head teacher or principal. The Sh1.3 billion will be used for capacity building of the educators on the Competency-Based Curriculum,” he said.
“When a teacher clears three years, he or she is supposed to automatically go to the next cadre which we have done, it is real-time. In March, we conducted competitive interviews and we were able to promote 10,000 teachers,” added Dr Muturi.
Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu, who officially opened the conference, said the teachers will be deployed equitably.
“Currently, the budget implementation is playing out in a tight fiscal space occasioned by the global economic crisis. This calls for all players in the sector, especially education managers, to exercise prudence in the management of the limited resources at their disposal,” he said, while urging the school managers to strictly adhere to public finance management practices while utilising funds from the government and parents.
On the previous recruitment of junior secondary school (JSS) teachers, Dr Muturi said: “We consulted with the Ministry of Education and we were able to get correct data that we have 30,550 classes. That’s why we distributed a teacher per class. That means a one-streamed school got one teacher, for two streams two teachers and five streams got five teachers.”
Stakeholders have complained that the teachers are inadequate as there are 12 compulsory subjects in the JSS.
Dr Muturi observed that TSC deployed 8,367 primary school teachers, who met the minimum requirements, to teach at JSS.
“We appreciate the State going out of its way to ensure more teachers are employed. We are happy that funds have been put aside to ensure others are employed in the new financial year. But I request we should not only concentrate on JSS, in secondary schools, we also have a shortfall,” he said.
