The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is planning to promote a total of 3,900 tutors this year its CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia said when she appeared during a two day consultative forurm with National Assembly Education Committee.
However TSC did not explicitly say the category of teachers it seeks to promote this year. There have been speculation that TSC is planning to promote diploma teachers who have stuck in one Job group for long as well as teachers in formerly job group L.
Some weeks ago Kuppet Diploma teachers protested and presented a raft of demands to their top union officials through a memo. Among the issues canvassed in the memo were:
i. The stagnation of Diploma teachers in Job Group c2
ii. The slow promotion of Diploma teachers who have obtained BEd degrees
iii. The introduction of a new Marking Scheme for teacher recruitment that has lowered the scores for Diploma teachers.
In response Akello Misori praised the implementation of Career Progression Guidelines under the CBA saying that it has brought tremendous gains for teachers, compared the situation that obtained when promotions were based strictly on the Schemes of Service.
The teachers have since threatened to withdraw from the union. During the meeting, the TSC boss said that some 55,000 teachers have been promoted this year and that 460 teachers have already been interviewed and will get promotion letters soon.
The committee members expressed concern over the duration some deputy principals have served as acting head-teachers and asked TSC to determine a maximum period for such cases. This comes as more Deputy head teachers are still waiting for posting after attending interviews for headship late last year.
Only few have received letters for posting them to schools as heads. The MPs proposed the need to develop a policy on the promotion of teachers who have attained the required qualifications to head institutions.
They emphasised that fairness must be key in all promotion exercises. The MPs also raised concern over the transfer of teachers, especially school principals and head- teachers.
Citing multiple schools in their constituencies that nave experienced a great turnover at the administration level, the MPs said the transfers affect operation of the schools.
Macharia, however, said that all vacancies are filled competitively with the objective to promote national values, fairness, non-discrimination and equity.
“The criteria used in promotion of teachers include the availability of budget/funds; the existence of vacancies in the authorized establishment; merit and ability as reflected in the teacher’s work performance; academic and professional qualification among others,” she said.
TSC has also continued to issue deployment letters to primary school teachers who deserve. TSC had advertised 1,000 posts last year and did the same September this year.
The 1,000 posts were primarily reserved for practising P1 teachers with degree and C+ at KCSE to teach in high school. The application was done online through a portal provided by the employer.
TSC has been blamed by the primary school teachers for failing to promote them after acquiring higher academic qualification. TSC stopped promotion of teachers based on papers early January 2014 and this led to disquiet among the primary school teachers.
Most of those who submitted their papers to the Commission only received acknowledgement letters but waited for promotion in vain.
TSC changed the promotion of teachers after it developed the Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) immediately after signing of the CBA 2017- 2021 between it and the teachers unions.
However TSC has started releasing deployment letters to successful p1 teachers who applied for the 1,000 posts. TSC is planning in, due time, to post all the qualified and deserving p1 teachers to secondary school to help plug shortage brought about by 100% transition.
TSC database shows that at least 6,347 primary school teachers have degree with C+ at KCSE and two teaching subjects and qualify to teach in secondary school.