Schools from upcountry will reap big from the upcoming teachers’ recruitment exercise slated for January.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has announced 35,550 vacancies that are up for grabs in both primary and secondary schools.
Thousands of unemployed tutors are set to benefit as TSC moves to fill shortage gaps at a time the government is implementing the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), with the first batch of Grade Seven learners transitioning to junior secondary domiciled in public primary schools.
The vacancies are 9,000 teachers who will be posted to junior secondary schools on permanent and pensionable terms, 1,000 primary school teachers who will be on permanent and pensionable terms, 21,550 interns to be posted to junior secondary schools and 4,000 interns, who will be absorbed in primary schools.
Kitui county will get the highest number of new teachers with 1,475 tutors expected to be hired. Out of this, 434 will be permanently employed while the rest will be interns.
Kakamega County will get a total of 1,449 new teachers followed by Nakuru (1,223), Bungoma (1,208), Meru (1,120) while Makueni is set to have 1,056 tutors expected to address the acute shortage.
Other counties that experience high shortages include Machakos which will have 1,050 additional teachers in January, Kisii (995), Homa Bay (975) and Narok (912).
The country is facing a shortage of 116,000 teachers, and the latest attempt by TSC will ease the burden of teachers forced to teach more subjects against their skills, ability and capacity.
“Successful candidates will be posted to serve in any primary or junior secondary school in the county where they were interviewed or in any part of the county where the vacancy exists,” said TSC. Those interested have up to this Friday to submit their applications.
Isiolo will get 119 new teachers, Lamu (131), Samburu (175), Marsabit (191), both Mombasa and Tana River counties will have 192 tutors, Wajir (238) and Taita Taveta shall get 274 teachers.
Teachers who have trained in languages and sciences will get the highest chunk of the opportunities unlike those who specialised in humanities.
According to TSC, intern teachers attached to primary schools will earn a monthly stipend of Sh15,000 while their counterparts in junior secondary schools will take home Sh20,000 subject to statutory deductions for a period of one year.
Successful candidates for junior secondary schools shall be required to teach various learning areas under junior secondary curriculum, added TSC.
Teachers trained and qualified to teach languages will be required to teach a total of 21 lessons in a week with english, mathematics and pre-technical studies taught five times a week each, while integrated science, kiswahili allocated four lessons a week.
Foreign languages, social studies, virtual arts and performing arts, business studies, and indigenous languages will be conducted three times a week. Religious education, health education and physical education and sports will be taken twice a week.
Life skills education will take one lesson.
The most sought-after teachers are those with a combination of kiswahili and CRE, english, history and CRE, kiswahili and history, business studies, mathematics and physics, mathematics and chemistry, and mathematics and biology.
Those with german, fine arts, braille and french will have fewer opportunities.
