The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has confirmed one hundred per cent posting of teachers and revealed plans to train newly recruited junior secondary school teachers.
According to the Commission, the training of teachers was scheduled to be done between January and April this year.
However, TSC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Nancy Macharia revealed that the teachers who had already trained in junior secondary school will help in retooling newly recruited teachers.
“We target to train 90,000 teachers between January and April,” said Dr Nancy Macharia.
The TSC Director of Human Resource Management and Development Julius Olayo earlier revealed that retooling of teachers will be done to ensure that they meet the expected standards to effectively deliver on their mandate.
Olayo said that as of that time, 229,000 primary school teachers and 60,000 secondary school teachers had undergone training on the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
“Additionally, all field officers and curriculum support officers have been trained on the CBC to understand the curriculum and be able to give instructional support during the implementation of the curriculum,” said Olayo.
It seems TSC headed the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) call for the Ministry of Education to hasten the process of posting Junior Secondary School (JSS) teachers for the sake of Grade 7 learners.
KNUT through the Eldoret East Branch Executive Sammy Bor said that since JSS began reporting to schools at the end of January they have not been learning because teachers have not yet been posted.
“As a union, we are concerned with how junior secondary school is being handled by the government. As I am talking, despite students joining junior secondary schools, there is a big shortage of teachers making it hard for learning to kick off,” said the KNUT boss.
According to Bor, the staffing issue needed to be urgently addressed for the sake of Grade 7 learners.
“There is a lot of confusion in many schools – children are going to school but are not being taught. Nothing much is happening and that is why the ministry should hasten to address the matter.
“A school like Hill School has over five streams and yet the government is sending one teacher per school. What do you expect them to do with such a population? For this program to be efficient, more teachers must be employed,” he added.
In addition, he said that infrastructure and learning materials procurement was another issue that needed addressing.
“Most schools have not received textbooks as promised by the government, the issue of capitation should also be quickened for the smooth running of learning. There is a lot of confusion since most students are not being taught,” said Bor.