The Teachers Service Commission, TSC is a body responsible for the recruitment and deployment of qualified teachers from time to time.
The year 2021 is one of the best for P1 teachers with degree qualifications, teacher interns, and graduates since the Commission announced several vacancies to be filled on a competitive basis.
Latest news reaching us at newspro.co.ke now indicate that the TSC is in a rush to deploy all the deserving primary school teachers with C+ and degrees to Junior schools.There are high speculations of higher deployment slots next year as compared to the current 1,000 per year. This is for the double transition in 2023 which will need more secondary school teachers.
There are also some 1,000 P1 practising teachers who are set to be deployed to secondary schools by September. These teachers recently submitted their applications online to the Commission and had their hard copy letters get verified and retained at the counties. They are soon smiling in the next few weeks as they will be in their new classes in September.
The teachers who will be deployed next year will probably emerge the luckiest. Currently, TSC is deploying these teachers to far schools from their current stations.This depends on where the vacancies exist. Next year is likely to be different. Some good number of primary schools will be used as Junior schools in 2023 as said before by ministry of education.
Incase of deployment, a primary school teacher who deserves to be deployed will likely to be posted just in the same compound as a junior secondary school teacher next year in preparation for January 2023 opening.
In 2023 when Grade 6 will move to Grade 7, the current Class Six learners under the 8-4-4 system will also be enrolled to Form One after sitting the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education Examinations (KCPE).
The junior secondary school will include Grades 7, 8 and 9. The pioneer pupils under the new 2-6-3-3-3 Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) system will transition to junior secondary school in 2023 after sitting the Grade 6 national examinations.
The Ministry of Education has since selected several primary schools for upgrading to junior secondary schools. Those with better infrastructure will be upgraded to host Junior Secondary School (JSS) wing.
Under-enrolled schools and those in close proximity will be merged and either one of the institution’s infrastructure improved. Some schools will have a combination of both primary and junior secondary in the same compound.
It is still debatable whether the Teachers service Commission will reduce its strict guidelines for the practising P1 teachers to serve the considering that teachers who graduated in various institutions do not attain the minimum KCSE grades required by TSC for one to teach in secondary school.
TSC has only been deploying P1 teachers with Degree in secondary school options and those who have attained at least a minimum grade of C+ in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
In addition, the above teachers must also possess at least a C+ in their subjects of specialization and meet the minimum teaching units needed for Bachelors Degree in Education.
TSC database points that 6,347 primary school teachers possess a degree with a minimum grade of C+ at KCSE and C+ in their main teaching subjects as of July 2020.
“Approximately 1,250,649 learners enrolled at Grade 4 in 2020 will transit to Junior secondary school (Grade 7) as the first cohort of the 2-6-3-3-3 while the 1,320,395 Standard Six cohort of 2020 will transition to Form One under 8-4-4 system in 2023,” reads the CBC task force report.
Promotion and deployment of primary school teachers to junior secondary schools will be cheaper than conducting fresh recruitment. TSC will deploy 1,000 p1 graduate teachers to secondary school this financial year (2021 – 2022).
In order to realise a 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary schools, TSC advertised 1,000 deployment jobs in 2019 and 2020.
Those successfully deployed will begin at job grade C2 at a salary scale of 34,955 per month then move to the job grade C3 following completion of 3 years as specified in Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) for teachers.