Inside TSC’s Plan to Recruit 6,000 Teachers on Internship, Requirements and Recruitment dates

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will employ at least 6,000 intern teachers in December 2021. The recruited teachers will be expected to take their internship posts early January when they will be posted to schools.

According to TSC Chief Executive Nancy Macharia the additional employees would ease teachers’ workload as enrollment rises, particularly due to the government’s 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary school policy. “This is a commendable government effort to ensure quality learning and teaching in our public schools,” said Macharia.

Macharia said the recruitment of 6,000 teachers on internship will cost the Commission kshs 1.2 billion. She said TSC is more concerned with the workload brought by the 100 per cent transition policy and commended the government for allocating more funds for recruiting more teachers. “We appreciate the government for allocating TSC funds annually for the recruitment of additional teachers since the 100 per cent transition programme was launched,” said Nancy Macharia. However of the 6,000 internship vacancies only 2,000 will go to primary schools while the rest 4,000 will be reserved for secondary schools.

The recruitment will start between late November and early December when the current internship contract expires. Last year TSC recruited 12,000 intern teachers under the Covid-19 economic stimulus package at a cost of Sh2.4 billion. Secondary schools intern teachers earn a stipend of Sh 20,000 per month while interns in primary schools take home Sh15,000. In July 2021 TSC advertised a total of 3,914 replacements for primary and secondary schools to replace teachers who exited service.

In the advert 2,987 posts went to primary schools while 927 went to secondary schools. TSC also advertised 5,000 teaching posts for secondary schools. However 1,000 posts went to practicing P1 teachers who have bachelors degree with C + in KCSE and C + in the two teaching subjects to be deployed to teach in secondary schools.

The recruited teachers have started to receive their posting letters where they will work on permanent and pensionable terms. In the last recruitment TSC gave priority for intern teachers to be employed on permanent terms.

In the recruitment score sheet the Commission awarded 30 marks to all intern teachers despite the period they had served. This caused an uproar from a section of teachers who termed it a discrimination exercise.

Some unlucky intern teachers were unable to secure employment on permanent terms and are currently serving under internship contract others for a second year now. Macharia said the July recruitment brought the total number of teachers hired since ,2018 to facilitate the 100 per cent transition policy to 28,,7001• Currently TSC has a total of 330,671 teachers employed.