TSC Scraps Communication Points, Gives Older Teachers Priority in Updated Score Sheet
The Teachers Service Commission has made biological age a critical factor in the recruitment of teachers.
In an addendum to the TSC’s recruitment guidelines, age is evaluated for the first time as a criterion for teacher listing.
The TSC emphasized the length of stay following certification, signaling a fundamental shift in how it used to employ teachers.
On the updated scoring sheet, the length of stay and age receive 70 and 25 marks, respectively.
The remaining five marks depend on the strength of one’s academic and professional documents.
For the first time, the recruitment process will consist solely of document verification, as the Commission has dropped the five marks previously awarded for communication skills during face-to-face interviews.
As it became apparent that thousands of unemployed teachers were getting older before being hired, members of the National Assembly Education Committee criticized the teacher employer recruitment methodology, deeming it inadequate.
The committee chaired by the Tinderet representative Julius Melly demanded that the Commission reevaluate its recruitment criteria and prioritize the biological age of unemployed teachers.
“The person who graduated in 2009 should have an advantage over those who graduated in 2012 or 2016. Your tool has discrepancies,” the Tinderet MP said in December last year when the committee met TSC bosses.
“Any teacher between 44 and 45 should earn more marks, even if the competitor has good grades. The certificate quality is sacrosanct but give him a mark that will edge out others who graduated recently.”
Initially, TSC selection criteria attributed weight to the year a teacher graduated and the quality of their certificate.
The Commission has finally yielded to pressure to include the age of the applicants on its score sheet for the first time.
Under the new method, unemployed teachers aged 50 or older will receive 25 points only for attending the interview, which is five times the maximum score awarded for academic and professional credentials.
This bold action will ensure that every qualified teacher reaches retirement age with government employment.
Before any other factor is taken into account, candidates aged 47 to 49 will receive 15 out of 100 points, while those aged 44 to 46 will receive 10 points due to their age.
According to the revised criteria, unemployed teachers under the age of 43 will receive five points; this is where most teachers, including recent grads, fall.
TSC will now utilize the new criteria to hire 35,000 teachers, one of the most significant numbers in Kenya’s history.
In addition to age, the quality of academic and professional credentials and the time since certification as a teacher will also be considered.
According to the guidelines, academic and professional credentials receive only five out of a hundred marks.
Part of an appendix on the Commission’s website stated, “For scoring purposes, the year a candidate was deemed qualified to be a teacher per Commission standards shall be utilized to establish the length of stay from graduation, not the certificate used.”
To further minimize the time a certified teacher must wait before being hired, TSC has offered a significant bonus to those who have been out of the classroom for a more extended period, guaranteeing 70 points for anyone who has been out since 2010 or earlier.
Those who qualified as teachers in 2011 but have yet to be employed will receive 65 marks, while those who graduated in 2012 will receive five fewer marks, totaling 60.The successive years’ scores decreased by five marks, with those who qualified in 2022 receiving the lowest score of 10.
According to the TSC, 10,000 teachers will be employed on permanent pensionable conditions, while 25,550 teachers will be interns.
There are around 9,000 spaces for permanent secondary school teachers and 1,000 slots for primary school teachers, whereas there are 21,550 slots for junior secondary school interns.
There will be a total of 4,000 intern teachers hired for primary schools.
TSC Scraps Communication Points, Gives Older Teachers Priority in Updated Score Sheet
