• TSC trained 113,223 teachers over the April holidays on CBC.
• Training will continue over the August and December holidays.
Image: ENOS TECHE
The government will this year employ 5,000 new teachers, the Teachers Service to Commission has announced.
TSC director Nancy Macharia said the commission has set aside Sh1.2 billion to hire intern teachers to address shortage in primary and secondary schools.
Macharia spoke at Shimo la Tewa High School in Mombasa on Monday during the launch of the county dialogues on quality competency based education.
She said TSC trained 113,223 teachers over the April holidays, 90,806 from public schools and 22,417 from private ones.
"I am confirming that CBC training will continue until all teachers are fully equipped with the requisite competences," she said. TSC trained 113,223 teachers over the April holidays
"By the end of the year, we would have trained 225,000 early grade and Grade Four teachers before embarking on training for other grades," she said.
The county dialogues to be held between July 15 and 19 are expected to lead to the national education conference on curriculum reforms in August.
According to Macharia, the conference will enable the sharing of county specific issues, collation of relevant monitoring reports and discussions on critical lessons.
The launch in Mombasa was characterised by a heated plenary session with head teachers and union officials taking ministry officials to task over huge gaps in the education sector.
Infrastructure challenges and staffing shortages of both teachers and curriculum support officers as well as lack of attention to special needs learners emerged as the biggest challenges affecting learning.
Coast regional director of education Hassan Duale announced that the region has 15,626 primary school teachers with a shortage of 3,805 and 4,804 secondary school teachers with a shortage of 4,700, almost half the current staffing.
Mombasa county Knut's executive secretary Dan Aloo bashed the government for putting the cart before the horse in implementing the CBC, questioning why the ministry insisted on going on with implementation without the necessary legal framework and engagement with stakeholders.
"It is unfortunate that the train has left the station without the driver, passengers and conductor. We must retrace our steps if we are to get this right," Aloo said.
Kwale Kuppet official Omar Mbuli complained the majority of pupils in the county do not have birth certificates which are a prerequisite in Nemis registration.