TSC locks out governors in teachers hiring

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has locked out governors in the upcoming recruitment of 5,000 teachers.

Commission Secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni said the teacher hiring process should be ‘depoliticised’ by locking out MPs and governors. “This is one of the greatest challenges we face because it brings on board a lot of vested interests, which complicate a professional exercise,” said Lengoiboni.

He made the remarks in Parliament yesterday when he appeared before the Education Committee that was chaired by Julius Melly. He said the revised guidelines to be used in recruiting teachers will have two panels at sub-county and county levels.

He explained that the TSC sub-county officer will chair the first panel, with the human resource officer being the secretary. Two zonal teacher advisory centres officers will be members of the sub-county panel.

At county level, Lengoiboni said the TSC county director will chair the panel. He said the TSC county staffing officer will be the secretary to the panel and the county human resource officer and the entire county staffing officers become members to the panel. “We will not have governors or even their representatives at any of these panels,” said Lengoiboni.

He said some 2,479 teachers will be hired for primary schools and another 2,521 for secondary schools.

Statistics from TSC indicate that primary schools have a deficit of 44,730 teachers.

Mr Lengoiboni said political interference is experienced where recruitment panels are forced to overlook requirements of the guidelines. “This results in a lot of complaints from aggrieved applicants, making the recruitment lose the intended outlook,” he said.

Governors were represented at county panels during last year’s recruitment for primary teachers.

TSC and county governments have been fighting over control of nursery school teachers, a matter currently in court. Lengoiboni said during recruitment, assessment of candidates will be based on professional or academic certificates, scores obtained as per the panel score sheet and age of the applicant.

“The quality of certificates takes 40 per cent, year of graduation takes another 40 per cent and the age of applicant takes 20 per cent,” he said. He added that some teachers are rejected on faith-based reasons and cited religious leaders as another challenge the commission faces during recruitment.

The MPs also heard that a selection panel for secondary teachers will comprise chairman of the board of management, head of the school and his deputy, subject specialist, two members of the board and the TSC county director representative.