It is relief of a sort to teachers as Teachers Service Commission reopens the teacher profile update portal after its closure on 30th November 2021 which was the deadline.
This effort is intended to enable the Commission to extend the exercise from the deadline that was set at 30Th December 2021 to 4Th December 2021 so as to capture details of many teachers who were locked out .
It’s reported that most affected tutors are the ECDE ,BOM, private school and the unemployed but registered teachers who came to know the exercise recently.
In July 2021, TSC directed all registered teachers to update their profile.
Through a circular dated 28th July 2021, Dr. Reuben Nthamburi, who is also TSC Director Quality Assurance and Standards, ordered teachers to update their profile by 30th November 2021 to help the Commission maintain an updated register of teachers.
“It has been established that the teachers’ details in the Register is not updated. To this end, the Commission has opened the online register to allow individual teachers to update their details.A link has been developed in the TSC website where all registered teachers are required to access and update their details by 30 November 2021,” said Reuben Nthamburi.
However some teachers misinterpreted this information to think only teachers employed with TSC should update profiles.Macharia emphasized All registered teachers whether in public or private schools should update their profiles.
This means any teacher whether BOM, ECDE, unemployed, or intern should update profile as long as he/she has a TSC number.
There are some 341,760 teachers working in public schools and 160,000 in private institutions.
Macharia said the exercise is crucial, making reference to provisions of the constitution and TSC Act that mandates it to keep all teachers register.
The Commission is in charge of maintaining the register of all teachers and issue them with the Certificate of Registration.
Registration of teachers is a mandate accorded to TSC through Article 237 of the constitution.
“It is also under Regulation 29 that we must continuously update teacher record and this is the register. So that if we have left out a detail we capture because we are required to do so ever so often,” said Macharia.
She said that sometimes teachers give their details but forget certain particulars.The basic details required by teachers for the exercise include their national identification cards, name, Kenya Revenue Authority numbers, religion, fate of birth, gender, mobile phone numbers and nationality.
Also needed are details on home county, sub county, division, zone, constituency, impairment type, permanent postal address, post code, permanent town, current postal address, post code and town.
“Once the basic details have been updated, one will be required to upload documents and certificates that prove academic qualifications,” said Macharia.
Section 23 of the TSC Act also stipulates that the registration of teachers must contain the qualifications and such other particulars as may from time be prescribed by the Commission, in respect of which the registration is granted.
Macharia said the update of teachers’ profile is a different exercise from the biometric registration of teachers but the two will be linked.
“This is different exercise from the biometric which was successfully piloted and will be rolled out nationally in March next year. We shall finally merge the two,” said Macharia.
She said that the biometric registration is about getting teachers bio data, for instance TSC will know if the teacher has gone back to school to get additional education.
“We shall also know if there is anything about the teacher that we do not know about. For example, in the register we do not know how many children a teacher has and this biometric process will inform us better,” said Macharia.