TSC to Roll Out New Mass Registration for Teachers

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Teachers Service Commission CEO Nancy Macharia addresses the media in January 2020 in Nairobi
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The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is set to roll out biometric registration for teachers in the country.

The registration under the Teachers Biometric Data Harmonisation program will commence on April 22, 2021 when schools reopen for the third term.

The exercise was initially scheduled to commence in May 2020 but it was shelved due to the Covid-19 pandemic that led to the closure of schools.

"The biometric registration shall entail validation of data of teachers in all public primary and secondary schools, Teacher Training Colleges, Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA) and Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE),” the commission revealed.

A signpost showing Teachers Service Commission mandated with hiring teachers in Kenya.
A signpost showing the Teachers Service Commission office. TSC is mandated with hiring teachers in Kenya
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The biometric registration of teachers is aimed at weeding out ghost workers with all the teachers under the commission's payroll expected to undergo fresh registration to verify their distribution, utilisation and teaching specialisation in public schools.

All teachers under the TSC payroll will undergo fresh listing from the school level with TSC Deputy Commission Secretary Kennedy Mulunda in a previous forum disclosing that the exercise would cover all the 321,811 teachers in 32,004 basic education institutions across the country.

“We want to update the existing information on the teachers' biodata and validate their requirement in all public schools and teacher training colleges by size and learner enrollment,” he stated.

In addition to using fingerprints to capture details, each teacher will produce their national identity card or birth certificate and any other relevant identification documents such as employment or designation letters.

Data for teachers in special programs as well as for curriculum support officers in all zones will also be captured.

The exercise will also reveal teacher distribution based on subject combinations and will unearth staffing gaps that will inform training needs for various subject areas.

Seven counties will participate in the pilot roll-out of the program with the national exercise scheduled for August/ September 2021.

Uasin Gishu, Homa Bay, Bungoma, Nyeri, Kilifi, Kitui and Garissa were selected because they present both rural and urban setups with 143 institutions sampled from the areas consisting of primary, secondary and teachers training colleges.

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Teachers at the Ministry of Education's CBC training in 2020
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