Recruitment of more Teachers

The sector plans to recruit more teachers both at the primary and secondary level to address the acute shortage and improve the pupil to teacher ratio. An additional 28,000 teachers, (both males and female) are to be recruited. Out of this group, 21,400 primary school teachers and 6,600 post-primary institutions tutors will be employed. These will be distributed over the first four years of the Plan period, with 6,000 teachers being recruited each year. The balance of 4,000 will be recruited in the final year during 2012/13.

To ensure efficient teacher utilisation, the TSC will implement cost effective staffing measures which include:

• Implementing differentiated staffing norms at Primary school level which will allow for a PTR of 45:1 in high potential areas and 25:1 in rural ASAL areas;
• Raising the Secondary school average teaching load from 18 hours to 20 hours per week;
• Retraining some of the under-utilised teachers to specialise in the optional subjects for which supply exceeds demand;
• Sharing teachers across schools as deemed appropriate;
• Placing a lower limit on the class size for optional subjects; and
• Considering various options for retraining and redeploying the teachers below the cut-off teaching load level.