TSC interviews set to start as 350,000 eye 9,000 vacancies

The Teachers Service Commission will this week begin conducting interviews to fill over 9,000 vacancies to alleviate the severe staff shortage that has crippled many schools.

The shortlisted candidates will be interviewed between July 22 and July 28 and the successful applicants are expected to report on September 1. The crisis in public schools could worsen when Form Ones report next month.

The commission has already sent the merit lists to TSC sub-county directors who will oversee the interviews that will be done in central venues. 

Competition for the slots is expected to be intense as there are more than 350,000 registered teachers who are jobless. 

For secondary schools, the prospective teachers applied for vacancies in the schools where they exist. Primary school teachers will be posted in any part of the country and not necessarily in the county where they will be recruited. 

The applicants will be interviewed by panels comprising chair of the board of management, the principal, a subject specialist and the TSC county director, or a representative. 

Successful candidates

The selection panels will comprise the sub-county director, the TSC sub-county human resource officer and two zonal curriculum support officers.

After the interviews, TSC will allow applicants who might have complaints to present them between July 29 and August 6, which will be handled at the county level.  

The commission is seeking to employ 4,000 teachers for secondary schools on permanent and pensionable terms to support the 100 per cent transition policy. Form Ones will report on August 2, raising the enrolment in secondary schools by close to 400,000 students.

An additional 2,987 secondary teachers will replace those who have exited the service through retirement, death, resignations or other reasons. 

Schools will also benefit from 1,000 more teachers who are currently serving at the primary level but have upgraded their qualifications.

Successful candidates will be appointed at T-Scale 7, Grade C2 under the Career Progression Guidelines for Teachers.

Internship programme

However, some teachers recently protested against ‘unfairness’ by TSC, which has given tutors serving under the internship programme a head start by awarding them an automatic 30 per cent of the final score. In the last recruitment last year, the interns were awarded 10 per cent.

The commission has also reduced the marks awarded for length of stay after graduating, which used to give priority to older, unemployed graduates. For teachers who graduated in 2012, the maximum score used to be 50 per cent but this has now been reduced to 25 per cent.

When TSC first introduced the internship programme in 2019, many teachers gave it a wide berth as the interns only earned a stipend of Sh10,000 (for primary school teachers) and Sh15,000 for secondary. This has, however, been raised by Sh5,000 for each category.

With the new development, many unemployed teachers are likely to turn up for the next recruitment of interns, expected in a few months. Sh1.2 billion has been allocated for the purpose in the current budget.

Primary schools will only get 1,000 new teachers as 927 will replace those who have left through natural attrition. 

This is because the staffing crisis is expected to ease in primary schools with the phasing out of the 8-4-4 system, which will reduce the number of classes from eight to six.

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