There has been growth in the number of public schools, learner population and teachers over the years. In 1963 there were 151 Government Secondary Schools with an enrolment of 31,120 students. According to the 1998 census by the Teachers Service Commission, there were 2,740 secondary schools with 685,509 learners and 43, 353 teachers.

The 2019 Economic Survey indicates there were 10.5 million learners in public primary schools, 2.94 million in Secondary schools and 42,351 in Teacher Training colleges, as at 2018.

The total number of teachers in public primary schools currently stands at 224,075 while the total number of teachers in Public Secondary schools stands at 117,120 and for teacher training colleges, CEMESTEA and KISE is 97,771.

To effectively manage the growing teacher resource, there is need to maintain an up-to-date data on all the teachers employed by TSC. To achieve this, the Commission has planned to conduct a biometric enrolment and registration of all teachers under its employment. Information collected from this exercise will enable establishment of a database that shall inform the Commission in policy and decision making.

On completion of the exercise the Commission hopes to have achieved the following:

1. Verify teacher distribution and utilization;
2. Establish areas of teaching specialization;
3. Validate the enrolment in public schools;
4. Validate teachers bio data and employment records;

The BEVOT exercise entails validation of data for teachers under the employment of the Commission in all public Primary and Secondary schools, Teacher Training Colleges, Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA), Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE), teachers in Special Programs as well as the Curriculum Support Officers in all the zones.

The exercise involves biometric enrolment through capturing of a teacher’s bio data that include finger prints and facial features and validation of personal employment data. This is being collected through biometric data capture kits that have been pre-loaded with data from the IPPD database. To validate the data teachers are required to physical present their professional documents. The capture of the teacher’s biometrics is also being collected through the kits. In addition, school specific information not limited to; enrolment, streams and location is being collected.

The personal employment data to be verified include;

1. Certificate of Registration
2. National Identity Card
3. Letter of first appointment
4. Letter of offer of Contract (if any)
5. Letter of current appointment
6. Academic certificates
7. Professional certificates
8. Disability Registration Certificate (where applicable)
9. Letter of release to other programmes (if any)

The pilot exercise is being undertaken to pretest the reliability and validity of the tool. It will also inform on the resources required for the roll out of the national exercise such as personnel, the logistics, time and finances.

The pilot exercise is the final stage of the preparations towards the national rollout of the national rollout of the programme.  The exercise is being undertaken with a lot of care in regards to the Covid-19 protocol.