The government through Teachers Service Commission, TSC, has been urged to retool the P1 teachers in primary section to handle crisis of teacher shortage in the junior secondary schools (JSS) which remains a mirage in actualization of CBC program.
Speaking at Amagoro after induction of Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) school representatives, KNUT National second vice chairperson Aggrey Namisi noted that the current student teachers ration in JSS was nightmare which can only be addressed by incorporating primary teachers who are the majority where JSS is domiciled.
“Our JSS learners are not getting the quality teaching are required due to acute shortage. This is despite efforts by government to employ 50,000 teachers,” said Namisi.
He added that, “This problem of one JSS teacher handling 8 subjects is unrealistic and must be addressed immediately if we want to save the future of our learners.”
Either Namisi urged the TSC to incooperate P1 teachers who had training in a number of subjected and are more exposed to wider coverage as opposed to university graduates who specialized on specific subjects.
“You will find English-Literature teacher being asked to handle chemistry or physics practices, this is unrealistic and one way of crippling the education of our learners,” he added.
He urged the government to retool P1 and diploma teachers to handle JSS due to wide scope of their training and for the reason that JSS is domicile in primary schools.
KNUT has now rechanneled its efforts in reclaiming its lost glory by launching school representatives who will help strengthen the union membership to boost its bargaining power.
This comes after over 180 KNUT school representatives in Teso branch were trained and inducted on how to boost the union stretch in the region.
In response to teacher’s views, The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has vowed to end job stagnation among the teaching fraternity in the country.
TSC Commissioner Dr. Nicodemus Anyang said the commission has promoted over 55,000 teachers in the last two years.
He said that the commission intends to promote in the next three months another 26,000 teachers, urging those who may not be successful to continue applying, noting that they were initially left out due to budgetary constraints.
Dr. Anyang told teachers to be positive despite the fact that some of them could not be promoted despite applying for the positions many times, adding that all was water under the bridge.
“Some teachers have vowed,” sita apply tena.” (I will not apply again). The Commissioner noted that those who have lost hope claim they applied many times, but in vain,” he said.
The teachers claimed there are criteria the commission uses to promote others and leave others, noting that there is no hidden criteria in the promotion of teachers.
The Commissioner said they held various stakeholders’ engagements across the country, and the main issue that came out was on stagnation, which they are implementing.
