TSC: This is How TSC Boss, Macharia, Plans to Promote the 14,000 Teachers-Parliament Hearing.
The national teacher’s employer (TSC) has been under intense pressure from various stakeholders on the ever-thorny issue of teachers’ promotion. It is noted with a lot of concern that a number of Kenyan tutors have stagnated in the same job group for aeons. Additionally, some have acquired higher qualifications but have remained in the same job groups.
It is from this background that, the Teachers’ Service Commission boss, Dr Nancy Macharia, informed parliament in a sitting recently that the commission needed 2.2 billion Kenya shillings to actualize some of these promotions. She keenly observed that the promotions had stalled because they had not received promotion funds since the signing and coming to force of the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement(CBA), something that she plainly described as having dragged the Commission’s name in the mud!
” To address the stagnation outcry, the commission requires Sh 2.2 billion to carry out the promotion of teachers in different job cadres. Please note that this issue has been presented to the committee severally and the Commission is yet to receive any funding”, observed Macharia.
These remarks were captured during her presentation before the parliamentary education committee on consideration of the 2023 budget policy statement.
2023 TSC Teachers’ Promotion Advertisement: The Numbers
The commission had previously advertised promotions for over 14,000 senior teachers. This is notably in line with the Career Progression Guidelines(CPG)
Notably, promotions for a total of 13,713 principals, deputy principals, senior masters, secondary teachers, headteachers, and deputy head teachers for both secondary and primary schools were made open for application last month.
The Deputy Headteacher II for regular primary schools promotion slots took the lion’s share for the entire promotion vacancies advertised. This cadre had a whopping 7,720 promotional posts to be filled.
2,733 headteachers for regular primary schools, 1,330 secondary teachers, 1,725 deputy principal II, 602 principals for regular schools, 224 deputy principal III and some 208 senior Master II for secondary schools are scheduled for promotion upon treasury disbursing the funds to the commission.
Additionally, there were also 73 slots for regular secondary school chief principals, 32 Headteachers for Special Needs Education (SNE), 22 Deputy Headteachers for SNE schools, 17 posts for Deputy Principal 1, eight principals for SNE, and four Chief Principals for SNE schools.
moreover, 1,020 promotional posts for teachers deployed as principals, deputy principals, teachers, and deputy head teachers in the arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) and the hard-to-staff regions, and counties.
The following is a table of ASAL and Difficult-to-staff Areas in the country as captured by the TSC Circular.
| 1. | Baringo North |
| 2. | Tiaty East |
| 3. | Tiaty West |
| 4. | Marigat Sub-Counties |
| 5. | Garissa |
| 6. | Homabay- Suba, Mbita |
| 7. | Kajiado -Mashuuru,Loitoktok and Kajiado WestSub Counties. |
| 8. | Kilifi- Magarini and Ganze areas |
| 9. | Isiolo |
| 10. | Kitui |
| 11. | Kwale |
| 12. | Lamu |
| 13. | Mandera, Narok, Marsabit, Samburu, Taita TavetaTana River, Turkana, Wajir and West Pokot. |
In this category of promotions, the highest vacancies are for senior Teacher II at 284 followed by Senior Teacher I at 223, Deputy Headteacher II at 195, and some 90 Senior Master IV among other ranks.
For the four Chief Principal slots, applicants will be required to have served as Senior Principoal at T-Scale 14 for a minimum period of the three years, have satisfactory rating in the performance appraisal and performance contarcting process, meet the requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution and meet any other requirement deemed necessary by the commission.
It is important to note that these promotions were thought of by the teachers’ national employer (TSC) after an aproar from the legislators last year December! The members of parliament were concerned that TSC seemed to have delayed promotions for many teachers, having them stagnate at the same job group for unreasonably too long to fathom!