Nancy Macharia, the Chief Executive Officer of the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC), has announced that the Commission is looking to hire 6,000 new interns to ease Kenya’s teacher shortage.
The Treasury has approved the transfer of Sh1.2 billion, which would be used to hire and pay the interns, according to Macharia.
The majority of the interns will be assigned to secondary schools in the sub-county.
Kenya has a teacher shortage of 114,581, according to the TSC chief.
She was addressing at the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) headquarters on Dennis Pritt Road in Nairobi on Saturday, April 23 during the announcement of the 2021 KCSE results.
TSC has employed 28,000 interns to help address the shortage, according to Macharia.
She also announced that the National Treasury has released Sh2.5 billion to hire 5,000 additional permanent and pensionable teachers.
“I want to reassure the country that the Commission will immediately begin the process of recruiting teachers so that they can report to work as soon as possible, alleviating the current teacher shortage in schools,” she added.
Teachers that perform admirably will be recognized through the Mwalimu Awards, a new incentive scheme.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has accepted the proposal establishing the rewards mechanism, according to Nancy.
She also announced that beginning Monday, April 25, secondary school teachers will be taught on CBC in preparation for the January 2023 launch of junior secondary.
The Commission, according to Macharia, plans to train all 116,024 high school teachers by the end of 2022. A total of 56,024 secondary school teachers have yet to receive CBC training.
“The public should have confidence that by January [2023], all of our secondary school instructors will have been trained to welcome junior secondary school kids,” she stated.
All 229,292 primary school teachers will receive CBC training as well.
The TSC chief stated that 1,594 school heads who were set to retire in 2020 or 2021 but had their contracts extended to avoid a leadership crisis because to the Covid-19 outbreak can now retire.
According to Macharia, the vacancies they will leave behind will be filled by January 2023.
Secondary school principals and primary school principals are among the school administrators.
Macharia also thanked 16,000 teachers who faced the disease’s dangers and reported to work despite being told to stay at home due to Covid-19.
