The number of teachers who are trained, registered but unemployed by the teachers service commission is far much high than those employed by the TSC. Currently, the teachers employed by the TSC stands at 337,432 and those that are unemployed now stand at over 350,000 teachers.
Teachers service commission has been employing 5000 teachers on permanent basis every year in the past three years. But this does not even translate to 2% of unemployed teachers.
As much as the number of teachers who are unemployed is skyrocketing, the lucky few teachers will be able to be absorbed by the TSC this year. This is after 7,908 teachers retired on 31st December 2020 after clicking the age of retirement which is set at 60 years.
The assurance from the Teachers service commission CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia is that these retired teachers will be replaced swiftly within a month. This now clearly indicates that the Teachers Service Commission is set to recruit on February 2021 that is exactly a month after retirement.
The criteria the commission is using of employing 5000 teachers every financial year does not translate even to the number of teachers the commission registers every year. For instance, the teachers Service commission registered 8,500 teachers in the financial year 2020/21 which shows a high number of teacher who are unemployed every year. This implies from mathematics that over 3,500 teachers registered every year are not able to secure employment.
The Teachers Service Commission is recruiting teachers on internship who will bridge the gap created by the 100% transition. This exercise will see about 12,000 teachers secure vacancies in different parts of the country. The exercise is ongoing and is set to end on 8th Jan 2021.
The massive recruitment that was announced in September that saw about 11,000 teachers being employed, they are expected to report to their respective stations by this January as the commission released their letters of offer some three weeks ago.
Last week, Dr. Nancy Macharia faced the Senate Education Committee, she stated that, the commission has requested the treasury to increase its budget which will see about 20,000 teachers being employed. But in the recent past she said the treasury has been allocating the commission only 2.5 billion, which can only employ 5,000 teachers.
Dr. Nancy Macharia also narrated that since 2018 when 100% transition of students began, the commission projected to employ about 12,626 teachers in the next four years and requested for a 5 billion budget something that was not honored till date.