The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has extended the online application for the deployment of primary school teachers to junior secondary schools (JSS).
TSC will start the deployment of P1 teachers in February this year. According to TSC, they have extended the application period after a low number of primary school teachers showed up to apply.
On 13th January, TSC activated the application portal and was to close the exercise on 24th January but was forced to extend it to an unknown period after receiving a low number of applicants.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) urged the commission to drop its hard stance on academic requirements for deploying P1 teachers to JSS for the sake of learners.
TSC was also asked to retool the PTE teachers and allow them to teach the Grade 7, 8, and 9 learners. In the deployment exercise, TSC wants practicing P1 teachers to have a degree in secondary option with at least C+ in KCSE and at least C+ in two teaching subjects.
A total of 6,000 primary school teachers are needed to deploy them to work in junior secondary. TSC has been criticized for overlooking P1 teachers who are best suited to teach subjects such as Music, Arts and crafts, and P.E. which JSS teachers are struggling with.
Earlier, TSC CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia revealed that the Commission requires a total of 72,422 teachers to address the teacher shortage in JSS. She added that TSC requires a total of 149,350 teachers to handle Grades 7, 8, and 9.
Currently, TSC has employed 76,928 teachers in junior secondary representing 51.5% of the requirement. These are 39,550 junior secondary school teachers who were first recruited on internship terms but have since been confirmed.
8,378 P1 teachers who were deployed to JSS in 2023 and 2024 and 9,000 JSS teachers recruited on permanent and pensionable terms. The government also allocated sh 4.8 billion which TSC used to recruit 20,000 JSS teachers on internship terms.
TSC has so far retooled a total of 229,292 teachers on Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) and Competency Based Assessment (CBA) since April 2019. A total of 60,642 JSS teachers have been retooled from May 2023 to November 2024.
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