TSC Rendered Jobless as Functions Moved to Ministry
Starting in January 2024, the Ministry of Education will take over most of the authority formerly held by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) has outlined a number of recommendations in the draught report that will undermine the Commission and strengthen the Ministry of Education.
TSC will only continue to handle hiring, paying salaries, transferring employees, and other human resource tasks.
However, the Ministry of Education will now handle other crucial tasks like quality control, the regulation of the teaching profession, and teacher discipline.
Article 237 (1) of the Constitution establishes the TSC, a commission whose duties include hiring, registering, deploying, transferring, disciplining, and terminating teacher contracts.
But if the suggestions were followed, TSC would only handle human resource tasks and would cede its regulatory authority to a different organisation.
The amendments to the TSC’s authority would have to be implemented by a legislative act or a public vote.
The Quality Assurance and Standards (QAS) department has been a source of contention between TSC and the Ministry of Education because each organisation provided contradictory instructions at the county level.
TSC Rendered Jobless as Functions Moved to Ministry
The Ministry of Education will now be in charge of the Quality Assurance and Standards, which TSC will no longer be in charge of.
The taskforce also wants the personnel currently working at the Commission in these roles to be transferred.
The report recommends that the Ministry of Education take over the Teachers Service Commission‘s (TSC) responsibilities for quality assurance and standards.
This indicates that in bold suggestions proposed by the taskforce, TSC authority may be curtailed while a corresponding funding is kept at the ministry.
“The Ministry of Education ought to take over TSC’s quality control and standards-setting duties. The draught report states that “this harmonisation of QAS functions should be grounded in law.”
According to the report, the directorate for quality assurance and standards should be given legal authority to enforce ministry rules, regulations, policies, and deadlines.
The right to order the immediate closure of institutions that disobey established norms as well as the power to establish a system of incentives and sanctions are among the authorities that will be granted, according to the article.
The plan is viewed as a significant filler to the gaps seen in prior years where ministry officials oversaw student deaths and property damage to institutions due to a lack of jurisdiction.
