Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has today indicated that it will announce 7,000 internship vacancies for both primary and secondary school teachers next month.
According to TSC Communication Corporate Director, the 4th slot of intern teachers will report to their stations when schools open for the new academic year. Of the vacancies, 5,134 will be for the secondary school and 1,860 for primary teachers.
Once the slots are availed in the Teachers Service Commission Portal, applicants will be invited to submit their application online in unspecified period of application before being invited for interviews. The interviews will be conducted over the December holidays.
According to the commission, of the slots, the lion’s share went to secondary schools to address the looming challenge of double intake ahead of CBB piloting in Junior Secondary.
For the first time in the education system, the form ones and Grade 6 learners will be beginning their high school in January 2023, it is obvious that TSC will have to employ more teachers to handle that big number of students.
According to stats from the ministry of education shows about a 1.2million learners will join grade 7 under CBC in junior secondary school and about the same number of pupils will be sitting their KCPE and will join form one.
With this number of students in form one and Grade 7 under the junior secondary school, there will be a serious crisis in secondary schools as the number of lessons will triple per teacher, this has made TSC move with speed to ensure at least 5,000 more interns will be hired to bridge that gap between the student-teacher that is already too wide.
The education ministry will still be faced with an acute shortage of classrooms because currently, the ministry has done about two classes in every secondary school to host junior secondary school Grade 7 pupils, bearing in mind that some schools admit students in more than ten streams of not less than 60 students that means two streams cannot be sufficient to cater for such high numbers.
The outgoing Education CS Prof. Magoha has in the past literated that pupils joining Grade 7 will choose their schools of choice in grade 6 by the end of the year which means the same problems currently affecting the over- preference of some schools while others lack learners will continue.
The lack of other facilities like dorms and laboratories will worsen as the number of students will double, education stakeholders, must reconsider the decision to domicile all the junior secondary schools in secondary schools as the problems of staffing and overstretching of facilities will definitely hit the schools seriously.
This comes a time when the new administration is under pressure to fulfill its promise during campaign of employing 58,000 teachers to curb teachers shortage in public schools. President Ruto’s government and teachers’ Unions have being in cat and mouse chase game over unfulfilled promise.
However, the Deputy President has called for patience for the fulfilling of the government plan.
