Teachers across the country are set to be counted, enrolled and validated into a new biometric system after the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) rolled out the pilot program.
The program has been rolled out in seven counties of Uasin Gishu, Homa Bay, Bungoma, Nyeri, Kilifi, Kitui and Garissa – and involves among other things capturing teachers’ fingerprints and validation of personal employment
Reports indicate that teachers will be registered afresh using identification details of the teachers, letter of appointment, PWD certifications if any, and academic certificates that are run against preloaded data from the IPPD.
Once fully rolled out – TSC hopes to capture details of 224,075 primary school teachers in 22,821 public schools; 117,120 secondary school teachers in 9,043 public secondary schools and teacher training colleges – according to information availed in April.
On Monday, May 10, 2021, TSC CEO Nancy Macharia said during the release of the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams that the commission would embark on a nationwide biometric enrollment of teachers to help curb instances where some teachers have been wrongly implicated in exam cheating.
The data obtained will also help in establishing teachers areas of specialization and their utilization.
TSC Director Ibrahim Mumin who was engaged in the rollout of the pilot program said there was need to maintain an up to date data of teachers and the information captured will be used to create a database that will help inform the government in certain decision-making processes.