Only three percent of all the deployed teachers did science subjects combinations. This according to science teachers is discriminatory.
However according to Teachers Service Commission (TSC), teachers cannot be posted where vacancies are nonexistent. Teachers will only be posted to schools with specific teaching subjects need.
Some teachers are calling for TSC to check on other issues before deploying teachers. These include the year the teacher graduated, quality of KCSE mean grades and the teachers age.
A section of teachers also want TSC to increase the number of deployment slots from 1,000 to at least 3,000 annually while others want the number of deployment slots per county to be made public.
Despite TSC halting Schemes of Service that, the Commission has continued promoting PTE teachers with bachelors degree in secondary option.
TSC stopped automatic promotion of teachers in January 2014. During the hay days teachers would be promoted after receiving the acknowledgement letters.
In some cases the payment would start from the time of graduation. However TSC stopped Schemes of Service and adopted Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) as new promotion method.
The coming of CPG has affected some teachers who are now stagnating in one job group for long despite acquiring higher academic qualification.
On 29th September 2020 some Kuppet Diploma teachers presented some issues related to recruitment, remuneration and CPG challenges to their National Executive Board (NEB).
Among the issues captured 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; and
iii. The introduction of a new Marking Scheme for teacher recruitment that has lowered the scores for Diploma teachers.
Responding to their grievances, Kuppet secretary general Akello Misori praised the implementation of Career Progression Guidelines under the CBA 2021 – 2017 saying that it has brought tremendous gains for teachers, compared to the situation that obtained when promotions were based strictly on the Schemes of Service.
Misori blamed the diploma teachers for presenting unrealistic demands especially where they are demanding to be paid the same house allowances as graduate teachers.
The secondary school Diploma teachers are not the only one affected by job stagnation, in primary schools teachers with the following qualifications are silently crying for promotion;
1) Diploma and Degree in Special Needs Education
2) Diploma and Degree in Early Childhood Development Education
3) Diploma and Degree in Education (Primary option)
4) Diploma in Education (Secondary option)
5) Degree in Education (Secondary option) but lacking C+ in KCSE or C+ in teaching subjects.
The Commission advertised 1,000 deployment posts in July this year for practicing P1 certificate holders to apply.
TSC will deploy 1,000 teachers to teach in secondary school. The deployed teachers will start at job group C2 and later move to C3 upon completion of three years as stipulated in Career Progression Guidelines.
“Successful candidates under this category shall be appointed at T-Scale 7, Grade C2 under the Career Progression Guidelines for Teachers and shall be deployed to secondary schools where vacancies exist,” TSC said in the advert in July 2021.
TSC highlighted the following requirements for one to qualify for promotion and deployment to secondary school;
i) Be a Kenyan citizen;
ii) Be a holder of a P1 Certificate;
iii) Be a holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Education with 2 teaching subjects;
iv) Must have attained at least c+ (Plus) mean grade at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) or its equivalent and C+ (Plus) or it’s equivalent in the two teaching subjects;
v) Must be serving under Teachers Service Commission.
A total of 2,000 P1 graduate teachers were promoted to teach in secondary schools in the last two years.
TSC had advertised 1,000 deployment posts in 2019 and another 1,000 in September last year.
From July 2021 a deployed teacher at C2 takes home shs 34,955 at minimum in basic pay and shs 43,694 at maximum.
The teacher enjoys:
- a commuter allowance of shs 5,000
- a house allowance of shs 7,500 for those who are not in any municipality and
- a leave allowance of shs 6,000 paid once yearly.
- Those in hardship areas enjoy hardship allowance of shs 10,900.
The teacher will then move automatically to Grade C3 after completing three years as outlined in CPG.
In C3 he will earn shs 43,154 basic pay at minimum and sh 53,943 at maximum.
TSC is currently facing huge teacher shortage. The Commission will require at least 36,000 new teachers to teach in junior secondary.
TSC announced that only high school teachers will be trained to handle Grade 7, 8 and 9 which are the junior secondary classes.
TSC said at least 60,000 high school teachers will, in March and April next year, be trained in preparation for the rollout of junior secondary.
TSC is currently implementing Teacher Professional Development (TPD) as a form of promoting teachers.
According to TSC teachers will be issued with a renewable teaching certificate after every five years.
Teachers will study 6 TPD modules for a period of 30 years. The modules are divided into chapters. Teachers will pay for the modules which cost sh 6,000 yearly.
Mount Kenya University, KEMU, Riara University and Kenyatta University were picked to train the teachers.
