The Teachers Service Commission is targeting to recruit 1,558 teachers in Kakamega County.

TSC will post 1,449 newly employed teachers to Junior Secondary schools and 109 teachers to primary schools.

Kakamega County Director of TSC Margaret Kinyanjui released a schedule for the interviews to be conducted in all the 13 sub counties on 17^th January 2023 from 8.30am in the morning.

The County of Kakamega has a total of 16, 567 teachers, 10,778 are in public primary schools and 5,789 deployed in public secondary schools. By the end of 2022, Kakamega had a total enrolment of 543,960 pupils in primary schools and 208,244 students in secondary schools.

The County has a total of 900 public primary schools and 380 private primary schools, and a total of 425 public secondary schools and 19 private secondary schools.

Matungu Member of Parliament Peter Oscar Nabulindo asked the government to increase the number of slots for teachers to be recruited noting Kakamega still faces a shortage of teachers affecting educational standards.

He also asked the Commission to give priority to teachers who have tarmacked for long and have remained unemployed since their graduation from different institutions of learning.

“I urge the commission to be fair and transparent in the recruitment exercise that is set to begin. As MPs we shall continue to ask the government to employ more teachers in our public schools to relieve parents from paying extra levies to cater for salaries of teachers employed by school boards of management (BOMs),” he said.

The MP was speaking during the flagging off of students supported to join Technical Vocational and Training (TVET) institutions from Matungu constituency through his own initiative dubbed Mashinani Initiative meant to improve literacy levels and empower constituents.

At least 185 students benefited from the program as he asked parents to release their children to be part of the initiative. He also asked head teachers to release certificates for students, which is a requirement for them to join TVETs.

The initiative supported 200 students in the same program in 2022. According to the Director of Mashinani Initiative Johnson Wamukoya, they also source for funds from other funders by submitting proposals.

Mashinani Initiative was started in 2016 by the MP who is the patron. It targets to improve educational levels in Matungu constituency, assist vulnerable families and check on social economic welfare of the people.

“The MP through the Mashinani Initiative is working round the clock to reduce the poverty index in the constituency and to improve the health status of constituents,” he noted.

Since 2016, the MP through the initiative has constructed houses for 40 people and supported over 700 students from the constituency to join various TVET institutions across the county. He said they are targeting to support over 2000 students.

The MP also asked the National Government to increase allocation of the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) as he expects more than Sh30 million to support students from vulnerable families in the entire Matungu Constituency.

“This year, we are only receiving a paltry Sh5 million which is not enough to support students from even a Ward only, but we shall be fair in the distribution of the resources we get from the government. The Funds will go towards supporting the most vulnerable students,” he added.

He also assured residents of Matungu that they have acquired land at Namberekea to establish a TVET Centre with support from the National government in the next three years.