The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has approved the transfer of 14,613 teachers back to their home counties bringing the Commission’s delocalization policy to an end.
However, it has been revealed that 120 transfer requests by delocalized teachers were denied because the Commission is yet to find replacements.
The moment the Commission opened the window to receive rerouting requests, 14,733 teachers across the country applied for transfers to their respective counties.
It has been reported that the remaining 120 teachers will be transferred to their home counties once TSC finds replacements for the pending transfers before approving the remaining transfer requests.
The Commission revealed this via a memo.
“All teachers and deputy headteachers are reporting on January 23, while school heads are to report on January 16,” read part of the memo.
It has been revealed that out of the 14,613 successful reroutes, there were 189 deputy headteachers, 226 school principals, and 1,948 primary school principals who were transferred to their counties of choice.
1,316 secondary school teachers and 10,934 primary school teachers will also be transferred.
According to the Commission, TSC regional heads will be in charge of transfers within their respective regions.
Transfers of teachers from one region to another will be done from the TSC headquarters.
“The purpose of this memo is to seek approval to mail the list of teachers to be transferred within regions and the memo to the regional headquarters,” read part of the memo.
The move is intended to allow teachers to change workstations within specified timelines.
According to the memo, 12,019 teachers would be transferred within their regions while 2,594 will be transferred from one region to another.
Regional Directors were also directed to oversee the submission of school heads’ handing over or taking over reports by the 10th of February.
“Ensure that all handing and taking over of school heads is overseen by TSC County Director and MOE,” read the memo.
The Kenya Kwanza administration had promised to do away with the delocalization policy and now they have done so.
According to the Kenya Kwanza administration, the delocalization program was harsh and targeted ruining families.
The National Assembly’s departmental committee on education and research had implored the Commission to approve the rerouting of all teacher transfers.
On the 15th of January, the Education Committee’s Chairperson Julius Melly said that data on transfers would be required.
“By January 31, any teacher who is asking to reverse delocalization should have been sorted,” said the Chairperson.
Malulu Injendi, the vice chairperson of the Committee questioned why the TSC Chairperson Jamleck Muturi appeared not to be aware that the delocalization policy had been canceled.
“At this point, I think we need to work with timelines. We give this panel till January to finalize all the 14,000 cases,” said Injendi.
On his part, the TSC Legal Officer asked if the transfers might be done on a case-by-case basis, but the MPs declined the proposal.
“You will be recruiting more than 30,000 teachers so you have no excuse for that,” said Melly.
The National Assembly passed the resolution introduced by Lurambi Mp Titus Khamala.
Khamala had proposed the motion in a bid to stop the delocalization of teachers from their workstations.
This means that in the future if the Commission transfers a teacher, they will be transferred to a different school within the zone where they work.