Teachers, TSC in War Over Promotion As Kuppet Cry Foul Over Members Stagnation
The Teachers Service Commission‘s allegedly slanted promotion criteria have drawn protests from teachers in post primary schools.
The tutors, through the Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers, want their employer to review the methodology for promoting teachers in order to ensure that it benefits teachers in all cadres.
The union specifically requests a review of the deployment of teachers to Junior Secondary Schools in order to assign more teachers in secondary schools to take control of Grade 7 students.
As it were, teachers employed in secondary schools should have been the first to be considered for promotion to manage junior secondary schools, according to Kuppet Secretary General Akelo Misori.
According to him, “Such promotions have mutually beneficial effects and may serve as the impetus for teachers to approach the demanding Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) with a high level of involvement and a positive attitude.”
According to Misori, thousands of teachers employed in secondary schools appear to have been overlooked in favor of diploma and graduate-level teachers employed in primary schools.
The smooth transition of grade 7 students will benefit from promoting high school teachers, he said.
The majority of high school teachers, according to Misori, have stagnated in their current work groupings for years.
He requested precise information from TSC regarding the degree of the stagnation affecting teachers in secondary schools.
By advertising positions for promotions in December 2022, Misori stated the TSC has finally addressed the challenge of stagnation among teachers.
However, the adverts were for limited jobs, namely those of responsibility, meaning that thousands of teachers would still be excluded from the promotions.
Misori has sought automatic promotions for all teachers who have served in various roles as Senior Teachers, Deputy Principals, and Principals.
“We demand promotion of all teachers in Job Group C2 to C3 be automatic after three years in service. We demand that no cadre should be left out in the promotion advertisements for as long as it is the case currently,” he said.
In addition, he stated that many Job Group D3 principals serving in sub-county schools have stagnated in their ranks for many years and have not been considered for promotion.
“According to career progression guidelines, Senior Masters in secondary schools is a substantive deployment. We had noted that most schools do not have substantive Senior Masters and therefore majority are internally appointed by schools where they have acted for long which is against the labour laws,” Misori said.
Given the large number of teachers who have stagnated in the category, the unionist claimed that the 1,330 teachers set for promotion are insufficient.
After pressure from teachers and the legislature, the TSC has set out to promote 14,742 teachers who have stagnated in the same job category.
In the promotions, primary school teachers will take the majority of 13,713, with 3,210 going to secondary schools and 10,507 going to primary schools.
The rest of the country will share 13,717 teachers, including principals, deputy principals, senior masters, and head teachers in both primary and secondary schools, with 18 Arid and Semi-Arid Counties receiving 1,021 of them.
