Why TSC rules will lock out young graduates

A teacher at Ngemini Primary School in Kitui County. New guidelines released by TSC will give priority to teachers who are 40 years and above in recruitment. [PHOTO: FILE/STANDARD]

Kenya: The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will give priority to trained applicants aged 40 and above in the ongoing recruitment announced on Wednesday that ends on September 1. The new guidelines give priority tocandidates who graduated in 2002 or earlier, and rely on the quality of certificates presented by candidates.

Those who have been jobless since graduating in 2002 will score a maximum of 40 points, according to the revised recruitment instructions. The merit list runs down to last year with decreasing points to 2013 candidates who will score a maximum of seven points.

This means that candidates who graduated recently will score lower grades compared to those who graduated earlier.

And for secondary school teachers, candidates with Masters degrees or Bachelors with first class honours degrees will be preferred.

The TSC has called for applications to fill some 5,000 new positions factored in this year’s financial budget. Some Sh2.5 billion was allocated towards this excercise for the current financial year (2014/2015).

The teachers’ employer also announced recruitment of another 5,339 teachers to replace those who exited service due to natural attrition (resignations, retirement or death). Applications will close August 11, 2014. The new recruitment guidelines were presented to Members of Parliament last week.

Trained high school teachers who graduated in 2008 or earlier will also score highly, compared to those who graduated this year.

The recruitment criteria are contained in TSC guidelines for recruitment of primary and secondary teachers for 2014.

For primary teachers, candidates who fall between ages 35-39 will score 16 points, four points lower than those who are 40 years and above. Those aged 31-34 years will score a maximum of 14 points in the interview. The next age bracket is 27-30 and candidates here will only score a maximum of eight points. Teachers who are 26 years and bellow will score a maximum of four points.

The guidelines read: “The applicants should be assessed based on professional or academic certificates, score obtained as per the panel score sheet and age of the applicant.”

On professional qualifications, candidates for primary school slots who have a distinction of 6-10, and 11-14 will score a maximum of 40 and 35 points respectively. Teachers with a credit of 15-20, 21-26 and 27-32 will score between 30 to 20 points with a group difference of five points a piece.

The guidelines say that grading will be based on six best subjects from 2006, and will exclude teaching practice. Candidates who scores a pass of 33-38 and 39-42 will score 15 and 10 points respectively.

Where candidates tie in scores, the guidelines advise the panel to use grades obtained in teaching practice, or give preference to candidates who graduated earlier. The quality of the certificates will also determine who gets the job in cases of a tie, with the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) as the recent certification.

“Any candidate who is dissatisfied with the exercise should complain immediately in writing to the TSC county director and send a copy to TSC headquarters not later than seven days after selection exercise,” read the guidelines copied to secretary to the Cabinet, PS Department of Education, PS Treasury and PS Interior and National Coordination Ministry.

Copies of the guidelines are also sent to Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), clerks to the Senate and National Assembly. Candidates for high school jobs will also score high, depending on their length of stay after graduation.

Those who graduated in 2008 will score 60 points against 30 points for candidates who completed training this year. And candidates with degrees in education will score highly compared to those with degrees in other programmes.

In addition to these, the communication ability of the candidates will also earn them two points. Candidates with special talents and willingness to participate in co-curricular activities and other duties assigned by head teachers will also score three additional points.

TSC Secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni said all applications must be submitted to the relevant panels. He said no candidates would be allowed to present their applications to the head office.

“TSC will only deal with TSC County Selection panels and Boards of Management in this exercise. No individual applications to the commission will be considered,” reads the communication from TSC.

Appearing before House Education committee, Lengoiboni said the revised guidelines to be used in recruiting teachers this year will have two panels in the sub-counties and counties.

The TSC sub-county officer will chair the first panel, with the sub-county human resource officer as the secretary. Two zonal teacher advisory centre officers will be members of the sub-county panel.

At county level, he said the TSC county director will chair the panel with the TSC county staffing officer as the secretary and the county human resource officer and county staffing officers as members.