Lamu and Nairobi City Counties have recorded the highest number of teachers who have completed their Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) accounts and submitted them on the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) portal by the end of the Third Term of the 2021 School/Academic calendar.
The TSC status report sent by the Commission’s Director of Quality Assurance and Standards Dr Reuben Nthamburi to the TSC Regional Directors revealed that as of April 12, 2022, the two counties recorded more than 99 percent completion with Lamu County topping the list with 99.36 per cent following by Nairobi with 99.05 percent.
The report revealed that Lamu County had only 9 teachers who did not complete their appraisals while 1,392 teachers fully completed the process, meaning they created and submitted their TPAD successfully within the set deadline.
The county had a total of 1,401 appraisals with 1,007 coming from regular primary schools, 7 from Special Needs School (SNEs) while 387 came from regular secondary schools.
In Nairobi City County, only 68 teachers did not manager to complete their appraisal process with 7,116 having their incomplete appraisals.
The County had a total of 7,184 appraisals including 4,010 from regular primary schools, 61 from SNEs and 3,113 from regular secondary schools.
Baringo County was the last among all the 47 counties with a completion rate of 79.4 percent with the Commission attributing this to the serious security issues being experienced in the region.
The total number of appraisls from Baringo County wwas 7,634 which included 5,376 from regular primary schools, 92 from SNEs and 2,166 from regular secondary schools. There were only 6064 which were complete and 1570 were in various stages of compliance.
According to TSC, Samburu County was among the most improved counties from 55.92 per cent in the last term to 84.67 per cent at the moment.
The county only had 273 teachers who did not complete their TPAD appraisal with 1,781 teachers completing their TPAD appraisals, including 1,239 from regular primary schools, 4 from SNEs and 538 from regular secondary schools. 1,508 were complete forms.
According to the report, 32 counties had more than 90 per cent TPAD completeness while 14 others counties a rating of between 80 to 89 per cent of completeness with only Baringo County having below 80 per cent.
The report also reveals that there is an overall 93 percent compliance by the end of Term 3 as compared to 87 per cent by the end of Term 2 and 86 per cent by the end of the first term.
The Commission also confirmed that by the end of the third term, 341,760 teachers had completed the forms representing an increase of 4,917 from the previous term.
However, what is of concern is the 22,607 teachers (6.61 per cent) who did not complete the process by term three and had their appraisal at various stages of completion.
Among these are 4,703 teachers who did not complete the forms, 5,829 submitted them without their supervisor’s clearance while 6,059 teachers had missing signatures.
In the report, Dr Nthamburi directed directors to give feedback from their respective counties highlighting reasons for non-compliance, list of teachers who had not been captured in the system and the supporting reasons, table of missing schools and an explanation as to why the appraisers (countersigners) were inconveniencing teachers who had already completed their part in the process.
Nthamburi also asked the directors to demonstrate how they would ensure 100 per cent compliance in their areas besides giving suggestions on how the online system can be improved.
TPAD was introduced in 2017 amid opposition from Teachers Unions and teachers who complained that it was too wordy and voluminous and consumed a lot of time.
According to a survey conducted from February 22, 2021 to March 5, 2021 by the University of Nairobi’s Enterprises and Services (UNES) Limited indicated that most TPAD stakeholders preferred the tool for making teachers more accountable than before and improved the performance of the 300,000 plus workforce in the country’s learning institutions.
In the findings, 86 per cent of the appraisers, 76 per cent of appraises, 92 per cent of heads of institutions, 98 per cent of the curriculum officers and 98.9 per cent of heads of teacher unions said that TPAD had improved accountability among teachers.