The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has extended the period for teachers to apply for promotions.
The deadline to apply for promotions was on June 9 but was extended to June 15 after two previous attempts given failed to attract enough applicants.
TSC seeks to promote over 14,000 teachers, as details indicate that thousands of schools will still remain without heads and deputies over the failure by teachers to apply for advertised positions.
“The Commission strives to ensure that teachers are promoted as a means to recognize and reward teachers’ effort and performance, align them for succession management or career progression and to motivate them to perform better in their duties and responsibilities. This is geared towards improving quality of teaching and learning,” said TSC in a statement.
TSC is now calling for teachers to apply for these positions saying that it has a responsibility to provide institutional administrators for public educational institutions for their effective management.
The Commission had initially advertised for 14,738 teacher promotions in January for various positions including chief principals, principals, deputy principals, headteachers, deputy headteachers, senior masters and senior teachers as well as Special Needs Education (SNE) positions to fill vacant positions and institutional administrators.
However, even after the second advertisement, there is still a variance of 1,001 positions that the Commission is seeking to fill.
For instance, out of the 7,720 deputy headteachers for regular primary schools advertised in the first round, the Commission got feedback for 5,152 positions, which means there was still a vacancy of 2,568.
For the second round of advertisement, another 1,581 teachers applied for promotions, which saw a variance of 987.
“The Commission has again given an additional seven days from June 9 to 15 to allow more applications,” said the Commission.
However, the Commission is worried by the low number of applicants who have shown interest in the promotions which the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has been fighting for.
