The Kenya Union of Post–Primary Teachers (KUPPET) has called on the Government to increase the number of teachers to be promoted next year.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) revealed that it is intending to promote 13, 713 teachers to leadership positions in both primary and secondary schools in a recent advertisement on the 22nd of December.
However, in the view of the union, more teachers deserve to be promoted in order to address the acute teacher shortage in schools.
KUPPET’s secretary-general said that it is important to modify the advertisement to include a bigger number of teachers who should be promoted.
Misori called on teachers to stay calm as they await negotiations between the union’s officials and the Commission to conclude.
“I hope the Teachers Service Commission’s decision will be informed by the real need to amend and adjust the promotional advert of teachers, especially in job groups C3 and C4,” said Akello Misori.
On his part, the KUPPET Migori County Executive Secretary, Mr Orwa Jasolo, uttered similar sentiments, saying that job groups C3 and C5 which form the bulk of post-primary school classroom teachers, we never considered in the recent advertisement for promotions.
Orwa said that out of around 110,000 post-primary teachers, only 3,000 or rather 0.20% are set to be promoted.
He also said that most of the advertised promotions will only benefit secondary school teachers.
This means that only a few teachers will be promoted while most classroom teachers in lower grades will remain in the same job groups without a pay increase or professional development.
He said that a majority of classroom teachers have stagnated in job grades C3 and C5 for between five and twenty-two years. Interestingly, no positions have been advertised for the same job group.
Orwa said that the Commission should find a way of including classroom teachers in the promotions because they are the ones who have the responsibility of executing the curriculum in schools.
Florence Oduor the area KUPPET Treasurer said, “What the TSC claims is a promotion is simply a change in grades and job groups designations.”
“TSC changed teacher’s job groups from M, N and P as we used to refer to them, to C2, C3 and C4 which is actually not a promotion but basically changing the names of the job groups,” she added.
She called on the Commission to listen to the teacher’s grievances on pay increases and promotions and address them.
TSC had emphasized in the promotion advert that regular school teachers were targeted in the promotions.
The advert was removed a few days ago which had targeted teachers working in Special Needs Education (SNE) institutions.
In the advert, the Commission also sought to recruit 1,021 school heads to various institutions in Counties that are in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands including West Pokot, Wajir, Tana River, Taita Taveta, Samburu, Garissa, Isiolo and Kajiado.
The Commission also revealed that it will promote teachers in Special Needs Education (SNE) institutions.
Besides, the Commission also advertised four open positions for principals in teacher-training institutions.