TSC gets Sh14 billion to hire, train teachers

Teachers Service Commission (TSC) building in Nairobi. [Beverlyne Musili, Standard]

The Teachers’ employer has received an extra Sh14 billion from the Treasury for hiring and training tutors on the new curriculum.

The money, which Treasury said is in the second supplementary budget for the last financial year that ended in June, will be used for “Teacher Resource Management.”

With the additional funds, the budget for salaries, allowances and other administrative costs - recurrent expenditure - for the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), in the financial year 2018/19 increased from the initial estimate of Sh226 billion to Sh240 billion.

This is a big win for teachers who have been pushing for the recruitment of additional teachers as the teacher-pupil ration in the country continues to underperform.

TSC Chief Executive Nancy Macharia said the commission required Sh16.4 billion annually to recruit additional teachers for the next four years and Sh8.1 billion in the fifth year, plus an additional Sh2.8 billion over and above the existing allocations.

The TSC boss said part of the Sh82 billion would be used to recruit 100,000 interns between next year and 2023. She noted that by June 30 last year, the commission had estimated a teacher shortage of 96,345 out of which 38,054 were for primary level.

She attributed the shortage to rapid growth in school enrollment and initiatives in the education sector that had necessitated the establishment of new schools and the expansion of existing ones.

“These initiatives include the Government’s policy of 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary. By 2023, the teacher shortage is projected to hit 61,671 for secondary school and 34,941 for primary,” Ms Machairia said during the launch of the commission’s 2019/2023 strategic plan in Nairobi.

TSC plans to spend about Sh114 billion for projects to employ additional teachers. In April, the Education Ministry and TSC held a four-day training for 91,320 teachers on the new competency-based curriculum (CBC) in Nairobi.

The training, which was launched by Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha and the TSC boss, was expected to cost about Sh500 million.

Ms Macharia said the training will be done through a smart cascade model led by master trainers. About 172 master trainers, quality assurance and standards officers, as well as CBC champions, were trained last week.

The 172 officers were drawn from education directorates, TSC, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, Kenya Institute of Special Education and Kenya National Education Commission.

[email protected]