Taita Taveta county Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers officials have rejected the recently launched Teachers Professional Development (TPD) training.
Kuppet executive secretary Shedrack Mutungi in a statement on Saturday said teachers are unable and not willing to pay for the compulsory retraining of teachers.
He said it is the sole responsibility of the employer to budget and cater for the total cost of any retraining, capacity building and workshops.
Last week, the Teachers Service Commission rolled out the professional development course, sparking mixed reactions from teachers.
Under the training, teachers in public schools will now be required to renew their professional certificates after every five years.
The teachers, in a new policy, will now be required to undertake in-service professional training lasting five years upon which they will get their certificates renewed.
However, Mutungi faulted TSC for rolling out the new policy without proper consultation with the union, terming it unconstitutional.
“Teachers were not consulted and therefore they have unanimously rejected TPD. It is unconstitutional to force teachers to go back to the colleges and retrain, a programme which did not go through public participation process,” Mutungi.
He has termed the 30-year long training programme outdated and unpalatable.
According to TSC, the TPD training will run for 30 years and has six modules each lasting five years.
Teachers will be required to pay Sh6,000 for each module and the training will be conducted during holidays.
Kenyatta University, Mount Kenya University, Riara and Kenya Education Management Institute have been contracted to offer the training.
TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia said the plan is to professionalise the teaching fraternity to match other careers like law and engineering.
Kuppet wants the programme withdrawn to pave way for further consultative meetings with relevant stakeholders on the best options to roll it out.
“Even if promotions were to be pegged on TPD modules as being claimed, it is not possible for all the over 300,000 teachers in the TSC payroll to be promoted at once immediately after completing one module,” Nyakundi Morekwa, Kuppet branch chairman (Taita Taveta), said.
Morekwa advised Kuppet members to ignore registration to enroll to the programme, noting that teachers cannot bear the cost until their salaries are increased.
Under the current economic constraints which has even led to freezing of salary increment for all government employees, Morekwa said it will be immoral to take the little salary teachers earn to finance TPD.
“Several teachers have undertaken graduate, masters & PhD degree courses, KEMI diploma courses and SMASE [Strengthening of Mathematics and Science Education in Africa] workshops which are superior to the much praised TPD. Teachers have rejected being under learning mode throughout their life career,” the chairman added.
He said teachers will not bow to pressure to join the training in exchange for promotion and salary increment.
