Treasury Slashes TSC’s Teacher Recruitment Budget For 2022
The government treasury has expressed non-committal towards recruitment of additional teachers to enhance competency-based curriculum implementation by slashing the TSC teacher recruitment budget.
Should the government fail to equip TSC with adequate resources, then CBC implementation will be a white elephant. The resources in this case should be among others, hiring and training of teachers, which should be captured in the budget of the next two financial years.
Out of the ksh. 300.503 billion proposed and presented by TSC to the treasury, the latter allocated only ksh. 281.704B in the 2021/2022 financial budget.
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The commission had a target of recruiting 25,000 additional teachers and 12,000 intern teachers at a cost of ksh. 10.75 B and 2.4 B respectively as per its proposals for the 2021/2022 financial year. With a deficit of ksh. 18.799 B, TSC will not meet its target.
According to TSC budget policy statement 2021 and the estimates for 2021/2021 financial year supplementary estimates, the amount allocated by the treasury will only facilitate recruitment of 5000 additional teachers in secondary schools and 6000 intern teachers.
“The current grade four and standard six pupils will transit to junior secondary schools and form one respectively in 2023. This will lead to higher enrollment which will call for additional teachers,” said TSC CEO, Nancy Macharia during her presentation to the parliamentary committee on education.
She added that teachers need capacity building to enhance their specialization in senior secondary schools.
Among the intern teachers to be recruited, 4,000 will go to secondary schools while 2000 will go to primary schools.
Currently, there is an alarming staffing crisis in secondary schools, catalyzed by the projected double intake in two years’ time. There exists a shortage of not less than 60,000 teachers.
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In January 2023, current grade four learners will be joining grade seven in junior secondary schools while current standard six learners under 8-4-4 will be joining form one. Other double intakes are expected in 2024 and 2025 when the last cohort under 8-4-4 will be joining secondary schools.
With the government turning 100 percent transition into a song, and increasing enrolment numbers annually, more CBC compliant teachers will be required in high schools.
Even before factoring CBC, TSC projected in its strategic plan, a teacher shortage of 97,826 teachers; 36,155 teachers in primary schools and 61,671 teachers in secondary schools.
“At the secondary level, the constant projected shortage between 2019 and 2023 is premised to be on the assumption that the government will sustain the provision of 12,627 teachers per year at this level. The full implementation of competency-based curriculum is however expected to impact the teacher demand significantly,” reads part of the TSC strategic plan.
Currently, TSC is under pressure to solve the existing teacher shortages, yet the money that has been budgeted for recruitment is far much lower than what TSC requires to recruit and train more teachers on CBC.
Additionally, from the financial year 2021/2022, TSC plans to recruit 1500 teachers in three phases of 12 months each. It also projects to train 75000 teachers on school-based teacher support system (SBTSS) in three phases of 12 months each.
More teachers are also expected to retire in 2023, further deepening the teacher shortage.
