The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has released lists of shortlisted unemployed but trained teachers who are hoping to secure employment in just 9,000 posts that the Commission advertised.
At the moment of writing this article, the number of trained but unemployed teachers is almost the same as the number currently on the payroll of the Commission.
The 350,000 available unemployed trained teachers represent more than thirty times the number of the available slots, laying bare the realities of the high rate of unemployment currently being experienced in the country.
The interviews have been set to happen between the 22nd of July and the 28th of July this year. Applicants who will have been successful are expected to be reporting to their new stations on the 1st of September this year.
Already TSC has sent merit lists to County Directors of Education. The County Directors have since distributed merit lists to their respective sub-county directors who will supervise the interviews which will be conducted in selected venues in every sub-county across the country.
Unemployed trained Secondary school teachers can secure employment in schools where they applied for vacancies. However, their Primary School counterparts have to buckle up as they can be posted in any part of Kenya and it will not be necessarily in counties where they will undergo recruitment.
Applicants will appear before interview panels comprising of the Board of Management (BOM) Chairperson, the BOM secretary (the principal), the TSC County Director, and a subject specialist. A representative of the County Director is also allowed in the meeting in his or her absence.
After the completion of the selection exercise at the county and the conduction of interviews, TSC will be open to receive complaints from participants who may not have been happy with the whole process to present their cases from the 29th of July to the 6th of August. The complaints will then be tackled at the county level.
The TSC County Director listens to the case presented before him/her and then the TSC Headquarters investigates the allegations before acting accordingly.
Teachers who are serving under the internship program were awarded a mouth-watering 30 marks which is a huge boost and a great reward for their service to the Commission. However, it is not yet clear how the selection panel will award the 30 marks to ensure senior interns are not disadvantaged. Senior interns are those who were recruited in 2019.
The awarding of 30 marks to interns is an obvious indication that TSC intends to have teachers undergo internships before they can be able to secure jobs with the Commission.
Many teachers did not join the internship program in 2019 as they felt the Sh. 10,000 for primary school interns and Sh. 15,000 for secondary school interns being awarded to those in the program was a small amount as many schools pay more than the amount on Board of Management terms especially the extra county, County, and National Schools.
The intern teachers were later added Kshs. 5,000 more for both secondary and primary school interns which brought them closer to the amount Boards of Management of most big schools pay teachers on BOM terms.