The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has questioned the lack of applicants for teaching posts in several areas of the country.
According to TSC Secretary Nancy Macharia, the North Eastern region has been affected the worst, causing teachers’ employers to prolong affirmative action deadlines and re-post job positions in an attempt to attract applications from the area.
To solve the teacher deficit, she stated that TSC advertised 36,000 posts in December of the previous year, but only 35,790 teachers were hired across several categories.
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Similar to TSC, which posted job ads for 4,000 internship slots but only managed to fill 3,986 of them.
Out of the 450 secondary school interns needed, 439 were hired, however there were another 21,550 junior secondary internship openings.
“The remaining 210 vacancies were occasioned by a lack of applicants for teacher interns in Mandera (174 vacancies), Wajir (29) and Garissa (7). The 210 vacancies were re-advertisement again in May 2023 but did not attract any applicants from the three regions. The same has been reserved for the region to be filled during the current recruitment or when an applicant is found whichever is earlier,” explained Macharia.
“Teachers are reluctant to take up teacher internship posts in some areas due to the amount of money paid as stipend. To address this the Commission has endeavoured to retain these teachers in their sub-county of choice where vacancies exist so as to reduce relocation expenses,” she added.
Similar to this, she said that there is a severe teacher shortage as a result of frequent registration of new basic learning institutions, insufficient financial allocations to hire a suitable number of instructors, and a growth in enrollment.
Regarding promotions, Macharia stated that the Commission published 14,738 job openings in January to fill positions left vacant by instructors undertaking administrative tasks in ASAL and difficult-to-staff locations as well as exits due to natural attrition.
1,021 of the 14,738 open positions were set aside for instructors hired with preference in ASAL and hard-to-staff locations.
Macharia explained that the institutional administrators’ promotion is governed by the policy on appointment and deployment of institutional administrators when asked why some teachers had been serving in an acting capacity for so long.
