An astonishing 356,000 jobless teachers applied for the 14,000 TSC vacancies that were announced last month.

This is according to the Teachers Service Commission that has released data on the number of teachers who showed interest in the positions.

The data shows that post-primary teaching vacancies attracted the highest number of applicants with 219,311 teachers expressing interest in the 4,000 new vacancies available.

Out of the advertised 1,000 new vacancies for primary school teachers, the commission received 136,833 applications.

TSC is seeking to recruit 14,460 permanent teaching jobs for primary and secondary teachers.

Out of these, 5,000 are new vacancies while 8,230 are to replace teachers who have exited service through natural attrition.

Of the 5,000 new vacancies, 3,972 will go to secondary schools while 1,000 will go to primary schools. Teacher training colleges will get 28 tutors. They will be recruited under permanent and pensionable terms of service.

Of the 8,230 vacancies that have been left vacant by exits, TSC will recruit 6,539 teachers for primary and 1,691 others for secondary schools. These teachers will be on permanent and pensionable terms.

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844 permanent positions have been reserved for schools in Garissa, Wajir and Mandera Counties. To qualify for recruitment in these 844 positions, candidates were required to be teaching under board of management in Garissa, Mandera or Wajir counties, if not hailing from the three counties.

For each of the advertised positions, only the top five candidates will be shortlisted. This will mark a departure from the past where long merit lists would be developed although only a few stood a chance of getting the job.

This is the second recruitment exercise by the TSC that is seeing a record number of applicants. The previous recruitment that was done in 2021 saw all jobless teachers amounting to over 300,000 teachers apply for less than 10,000 job positions.