The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has hired 14,460 teachers to address the biting understaffing that has seen tutors complain about burnout.
During the World Teachers’ Day marked yesterday, the Commission CEO Dr Nancy Macharia said the latest listing was meant to address the challenge of increased enrolment in secondary schools due to the government’s 100 percent transition from primary schools.
“I celebrate the teachers for continuing to shoulder a bigger burden arising from the increased enrolment occasioned by the noble 100 percent transition programme in our schools,” Dr Macharia said during the celebrations marked in Kenya at the Kenya School of Government in Nairobi.
“The TSC has posted 14,460 new teachers who were recruited last month arising from the fresh recruitment and replacement of teachers who left service through natural attrition.”
On the day the TSC was celebrating the recruitment, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) asked the government to employ another 70,000 teachers in both primary and secondary schools.
Mr Collins Oyuu, the KNUT secretary general, also asked the government to build more classrooms, laboratories and connect schools to electricity and internet in the era of online learning, made more urgent by the Covid-19 disruptions.
The Kenya Secondary School Heads Association revived the push to scrap boarding schools ahead of the double intake of students when junior secondary schools take off under the competence-based curriculum (CBC).
The country is preparing for three national basic education examinations– KCPE, KCSE, and KPSEA– which are scheduled to start next month.
“As we celebrate the teachers today, we are also cognizant of the fact that the staff are also busy preparing for one of the busiest national examination periods in our country, granted that we will be administering three national examinations –KCPE, KCSE, and, for the first time, the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) for Grade Six,” said Dr Macharia.
She urged the newly recruited teachers to adopt the system quickly to reduce the workload.
She recognised the steadfast effort of teachers at a time Covid-19 made life difficult for tutors, including requiring them to learn new ways of offering lessons to students who were kept at home to curb the spread of the virus.
“Our teachers have remained focused on their job despite the twin disruptions of COVID-19 and the just concluded General Election,” Dr Macharia said as the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) hailed their members as the true transformation agents of education, leading to this year’s Teachers Day theme: The Transformation of Education begins with Teachers.
After a tumultuous two years of Covid-disrupted learning, Kenya’s normal school calendar is resuming in January 2023, in what is expected to ease the burden for learners and parents who grappled with short school terms and back-to-back fees payment.
