Will TSC offer prevent teacher’s planned strike?

A day after Kenya  National Union of Teachers (KNUT) announced a country wide teacher’s strike slated on 2 January,now their employer has come up with a mouth watery deal that might prevent the strike.

The  Teachers Service Commission on Thursday said it was recruiting 1,197 teachers to replace those who have exited the service through natural attrition.

Some 893 vacancies are in primary schools and 304 in secondary schools, said the commission whose Chief Executive Officer is Nancy Macharia.

But do not expect any announcement of job vacancies because the available slots will go to teachers on the merit list   those who underwent interviews and have been awaiting posting.

 

Nancy Macharia

Not long ago TSC said 70,000 new teachers need to be hired immediately to ensure the quality of education is not affected as student numbers in secondary schools surge from 2.79 million to 3.2 million next year.

Last year, the government recruited 8,700 teachers to support the 100 percent transition. The number was 3,300 heads short of the 12,626 new teachers TSC says should be recruited annually until 2020 at a cost of Sh8.3 billion to ensure quality learning.

In addition, TSC says there has been a backlog over time in recruitment of some 57,380 others.

Although this is at par with the ratio recommended by Unesco, some national schools that are in high demand have ratios ranging between 1:50 and 1:70 in order to make maximum use of available teachers and facilities.

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