A day after teachers’ strike talk failed, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is now planning to hire thousands of teachers on a temporary basis should the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) go ahead with its nationwide strike when schools reopen on Thursday.
It is reported that TSC is targeting more than 290,000 unemployed teachers to fill the void should teachers stay away from classes.
TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia has directed the Directorate of Quality Assurance to review the data of over 290,000 unemployed teachers that are registered with the commission, for their urgent deployment and employment on a temporary basis should teachers go on strike next week.
The directorate is required to retrieve full names of such teachers, the phone numbers and email addresses as well as the level of training.
TSC officials must also retrieve details of the number of years since graduation of the said teachers, their current county and sub-county of residence and the nearest public school for the unemployed teachers.
The TSC staff are also required to ensure that the teachers can be contacted on short notice through a bulk SMS facility for assignment of duty. It is understood that this is aimed at saving time to mitigate the effects of the teachers strike should it take effect next Thursday.
CEO Macharia says that the data will be “utilized from time to time for various temporary and or permanent commission assignments.”
Even with the contingency plan by TSC, the KNUT has sent out a circular to all its branches directing that no teacher should report for the new school term until the strike is called off formally by the union’s leadership.
It is remembered back in 2015, TSC had set off to hire 70,000 reliever teachers following a month’s strike in September that year. The strike ended before conclusion of the hiring exercise.