By Alfred Koroma
The Teaching Service Commission (TSC) has officially commenced the implementation of its Teacher Deployment Strategy, the Commission announced during a press conference held at its Head Office on Monday .
The Commission is in the process of recruiting 2,000 new teachers following a licensing examination conducted to test their abilities.
Those teachers would be deployed in line with the new deployment strategy which is aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the teaching workforce, by evenly distributing teachers in overstaffed and understaffed schools across Sierra Leone, using an algorithm.
The deployment will vary by districts, irrespective of district size or location. That means, teachers may be assigned to schools different from their original choices, particularly if those schools are oversubscribed.
“We are moving every teacher,” TSC Director of Teacher Management, Marian S Abu said. “Those who refused to move would be replaced and their pin codes become useless.”
TSC Chairman, Lans Keifala said many schools in the country are oversubscribed, noting that the Commission will move teachers from those schools and monitor them.
According to TSC’s press statement shared to journalists at the press conference, teachers would be deployed or redeployed to districts outside their places of residence, as stipulated in the national policy and the TSC Act of 2011. Once placed, teachers are expected to remain in their positions for a minimum of three years before applying for redeployment or transfer.
