Teachers Service Commission Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia appears before the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee chaired by Mr John Mbadi at Parliament Buildings in Nairobi on February 20.
Thousands of teachers who attended interviews for promotion late last year and early 2024 will know their fate anytime from this week, the Teachers Service Commission Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia has said.
The teachers, many of who have stagnated in the same job groups for years, were interviewed for over 36,000 vacancies in primary, secondary schools and teacher training colleges.
Ms Macharia said the promotion letters are expected to be sent to the teachers beginning this week. Teachers who will earn promotion will get improved salaries.
The teachers’ employer had invited applications for promotion in August last year and interviews were conducted at the county level in December 2023 and January this year.
The positions up for grabs were for chief principal, regular secondary school (34), senior principal, regular secondary school (108), principal, regular secondary school (541), deputy principal II, regular secondary school (547) and senior lecturer I (72).
Others were deputy principal III, regular secondary school (1,057), senior master III, regular secondary school (1,142), senior lecturer IV, TTC (216), senior master IV, regular secondary school (12,716), secondary teacher I, regular school (1,928), head teacher, regular primary school (1,049) and head teacher SNE primary school (30).
There were more positions for deputy head teacher II, regular primary school (1,930), senior teacher I, regular primary school (3,040), senior teacher I, SNE primary school (346), senior teacher II regular primary school (10,819) and senior teacher II SNE primary school (700).
More good news for teachers is that the commission will advertise an additional 6,000 positions this financial year after it was allocated Sh1 billion for promotion of teachers.
Ms Macharia said that 46,000 teachers currently on contract will be converted to permanent and pensionable status upon completion of two years. This year 20,000 more teachers will be recruited on contract.
The secretary-generals of the Kenya National of Union of Teachers (Knut) and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) Collins Oyuu and Akello Misori welcomed the news, but insisted that more teachers who are due for promotion should also be uplifted.
“It’s been long overdue. Promotions should be done more progressively. Teachers have stagnated for too long and that’s not acceptable. Some have been acting in their roles and we expect them to be substantively appointed to enjoy their benefits,” Mr Misori told the Nation.
Mr Oyuu said the union expects the TSC to pay the promoted teachers arrears for the time they had qualified for promotion but had not been assigned the new job grades.
“The TSC must be sincere when they talk about promotions. The number of promoted teachers must conform to the vacancies advertised. Teachers should be promoted when they’re due for promotion,” he said.
He added that previously, the TSC never got enough applicants for promotional vacancies because teachers feared they would be transferred under the delocalisation policy.
Ms Macharia spoke to journalists in Nairobi where she also explained that the commission deducted the controversial Housing Levy from teachers’ salary for January because the court ruling suspending it came when the payroll had been prepared and money disbursed. The court ruling was made on January 26.
While appearing before Parliament last week to answer to questions raised by the Auditor-General, it emerged that the TSC had paid millions of shillings to teachers who had left service.
“The issue had already been resolved but had to go to Public Accounts Committee. This happens when a teacher dies or resigns or is dismissed when the salaries have already been disbursed. We run the payroll by the 20th of every month and payments made by the 22nd .
"We, however, later deduct the overpayment. We continuously recover this money. We’ve digitised our processes and head teachers can now exit such teachers in real time to avoid such gaps through the digital entry and exit system,” she said.
On the reforms proposed in the TSC Amendment Bill (2024), Ms Macharia said that the commission is engaging all stakeholders in the sector to achieve consensus before the Bill goes to Parliament.
In its first stakeholder engagement forum, senior ministry officials as well as those from Knut snubbed the event despite having been invited.
“Last week we met the caucus of all deans of universities offering teacher education to deliberate on the requirements for registration. We want to go to Parliament when the education sector is one,” Ms Macharia said.
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She stated that the commission had not acted outside its constitutional mandate and was implementing some of the recommendations made by the Presidential Working Party on Educational Reforms (PWPER).
The Ministry of Education has a sub-committee which is working on the recommendations which are expected to form the basis of a sessional paper to guide the sector.
“You can’t contradict the constitution. Public participation is for Parliament. We’re engaging stakeholders because we don’t work in a vacuum,” she said.
On the contested teacher development programme, the CEO said it is the mandate of the employer and the commission has requested Parliament for Sh3.2 billion to pay for the training instead of placing the burden on teachers.
“We want to make teaching professional and attractive. We want to export teachers. The question is, what kind of teachers are we exporting? Are they ready to withstand the riguors of the global market?” said the TSC director for legal, labour and industrial relations, Cavin Anyuor.
