- Teachers in post primary schools have protested against what they have termed as a skewed promotion criteria by the Teachers Service Commission.
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Through their Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers, the tutors want their employer to review the formula for promoting teachers to ensure it benefits teachers in all cadres.
Image: WINNIE WANJIKU
Teachers in post primary schools have protested against what they have termed as a skewed promotion criteria by the Teachers Service Commission.
Through their Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers, the tutors want their employer to review the formula for promoting teachers to ensure it benefits teachers in all cadres.
The union particularly wants the deployment of teachers to the Junior Secondary Schools to be reviewed to deploy more of the teachers in secondary schools to take charge of the Grade 7 pupils.
Kuppet Secretary General Akelo Misori said as it were, teachers working in secondary schools should have been the first to be considered for promotion to handle Junior Secondary Schools.
“Such promotions have mutually inclusive benefits and could be the motivation trigger for teachers to handle the challenging Competency-Based Curriculum(CBC) with the high level of engagement and positive attitude,” he said.
According to Misori, the thousands of teachers working in secondary schools appear to have been disregarded and priority given to diploma and graduate teachers working in primary schools.
“Promoting high school teachers will be an asset to the smooth transition of grade 7 learners,” he said.
At the same time Misori said majority of the high school teachers have stagnated in the same job groups for years.
He asked TSC to provide absolute data on the extent of the stagnation affecting teachers currently teaching in secondary schools.
“By the advertisement on vacancies for promotions on December 2022, the TSC has finally acknowledged the crisis of stagnation among teachers,” Misori said.
“However, the advertisements were for limited positions, mainly of those of responsibility, meaning that thousands of teachers would be still be left out in the promotions.”
Misori has demanded that all those teachers who have been acting in various capacities as Senior Teachers, Deputy Principals and Principals earn automatic promotions.
“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.
He also said many principals in Job Group D3 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.
The unionist said the 1,330 teachers set for promotion are too few considering the huge number of teachers who have stagnated in the category.
The TSC is set to promote 14,742 teachers who have stagnated in the same job group after pressure from teachers and Parliament.
In the promotions, primary school teachers will take the lion's share of 13,713 with 3,210 going to secondary while 10,507 are set to be in primary schools.
Some 1,021 teachers will be sent to 18 Arid and Semi Arid Counties with other parts of the country sharing 13,717 teachers composed of principals, Deputy Principals, Senior Masters, Head Teachers in both primary and secondary schools.