In a bid to eliminate ghost teachers from its payroll,the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is set to start the process of mass registration of all teachers countrywide.
Speaking during a media engagement forum in Naivasha on Saturday, November 27, TSC Chief Executive Officer , Dr. Nancy Macharia lauded the pilot program of the biometric registration which had kicked off earlier in the year.
Macharia noted that the program, which was carried out across 143 institutions in seven selected counties, was successful.
She stated that the commission is set to roll out the exercise across all the 47 counties in March 2022.
We piloted it and we shall now go full throttle in March next year. This will be about getting the actual data of teachers including the academic details of the tutors, their family life hence we want to get a whole bio-data of the teachers,” she stated.
According to Macharia, more than 300,000 tutors will be required to provide their biometric data in order to establish the actual number of teachers in the country.
Teachers across the country will be asked to update their details on an occasional basis in order to enhance service delivery.
Besides use of fingerprints,each teacher will produce their national identity card / birth certificate and any other relevant identification documents such as employment or designation letters for their details to be captured.
Data for both special education teachers(SNE) and curriculum support officers in all zones will also be captured.
The biometric registration exercise will not only reveal teacher distribution based on subject combinations but also will reveal staffing gaps that will inform training needs for various subject areas.
Further, the TSC boss indicated that there is a shortage of 103,000 teachers, Bungoma and Kakamega counties being the most affected. Macharia noted that the Commission would address this in order to ensure service delivery across the country.
Merging Profile Update and Bio-metric Registration
TSC CEO Nancy Macharia recently cleared the air on which teachers should update their profiles ahead of 30th November deadline.
This is after confusion surrounded the exercise where BOM, ECDE, unemployed and intern teachers were unsure on whether they should take part in the exercise scheduled to end on Tuesday midnight.
In July 2021, TSC directed all registered teachers to update their profile.
Through a circular dated 28th July 2021, Dr. Reuben Nthamburi, who is also TSC Director Quality Assurance and Standards, ordered teachers to update their profile by 30th November 2021 to help the Commission maintain an updated register of teachers.
“It has been established that the teachers’ details in the Register is not updated. To this end, the Commission has opened the online register to allow individual teachers to update their details.A link has been developed in the TSC website where all registered teachers are required to access and update their details by 30 November 2021,” said Reuben Nthamburi.
However some teachers misinterpreted this information to think only teachers employed with TSC should update profiles.Macharia emphasized All registered teachers whether in public or private schools should update their profiles.
This means any teacher whether BOM, ECDE, unemployed, or intern should update profile as long as he/she has a TSC number.
There are some 341,760 teachers working in public schools and 160,000 in private institutions.
Macharia said the exercise is crucial, making reference to provisions of the constitution and TSC Act that mandates it to keep all teachers register.
The Commission is in charge of maintaining the register of all teachers and issue them with the Certificate of Registration.
Registration of teachers is a mandate accorded to TSC through Article 237 of the constitution.
It is also under Regulation 29 that we must continuously update teacher record and this is the register. So that if we have left out a detail we capture because we are required to do so ever so often,” said Macharia.
She said that sometimes teachers give their details but forget certain particulars.The basic details required by teachers for the exercise include their national identification cards, name, Kenya Revenue Authority numbers, religion, fate of birth, gender, mobile phone numbers and nationality.
Also needed are details on home county, sub county, division, zone, constituency, impairment type, permanent postal address, post code, permanent town, current postal address, post code and town.
“Once the basic details have been updated, one will be required to upload documents and certificates that prove academic qualifications,” said Macharia.
Section 23 of the TSC Act also stipulates that the registration of teachers must contain the qualifications and such other particulars as may from time be prescribed by the Commission, in respect of which the registration is granted.
Macharia said the update of teachers’ profile is a different exercise from the biometric registration of teachers but the two will be linked.
“This is different exercise from the biometric which was successfully piloted and will be rolled out nationally in March next year. We shall finally merge the two,” said Macharia.
She said that the biometric registration is about getting teachers bio data, for instance TSC will know if the teacher has gone back to school to get additional education.
“We shall also know if there is anything about the teacher that we do not know about. For example, in the register we do not know how many children a teacher has and this biometric process will inform us better,” said Macharia.
