Teachers have seemed stuck in a constant tussle with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) over their pay. The teachers should deservedly be grateful to the Kenya National Teachers Union (KNUT) for fighting and succeeding to get a salary increase for teachers.
The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) agreed to increase the teachers’ salaries. The increment was to be done in three different phases.
The SRC’s implementation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) will bring an end to protests, complaints, and murmurings and what have you from teachers.
The New Salaries and grading system
We now provide all the details on the new TSC salaries and grading system for TSC-employed teachers.
Grading System
The current upgrading of teachers led to the removal of some job groups and others were merged. In the new system of grading teachers, grade P1 was under job group G was removed and replaced with Grade B5. This new grade was set to be the new entry grade for all tutors at the primary school level.
After the re-structuring, the other grades were set as follows.
- J to C1
- K to C2
- L to C3
- M TO c4
- N to C5
Aside from the above job groups J to N, another rank was created that belonged to the higher band which was designated as P, Q, and R. they were renamed to the following new job groups.
- P – D1
- Q – D2
- R – D3
The Kenya National Union of Teachers still requested more job groups S and T and the Commission agreed.
In the new grading system, the two categories were named D4 and D5 respectively. The Chief Principals are now under category D5 of the new grading system.
TSC designation code for teachers
After the Salaries and Remuneration Commission took the responsibility to do job evaluation, a new grading system was introduced. The grading gave new job groups for teachers. The following are the designation codes.
- Grade B5 (T-Scale 5) – Primary Educator II
- Grade C1 (T-Scale 6) – Primary Teacher I, Secondary teacher II, and lecturer III
- Grade C2 (T-Scale 7) – Secondary Educator II, Senior Educator II, Lecturer II and Special Need Education (for primary schools)
- Grade C3 (T-Scale 8) – Secondary Educator I, Special Need Education Teacher I (for primary schools), Lecturer I, Senior Teacher I, and Special Need Education II (for secondary schools).
- Grade C4 (T-Scale 9) – Senior Master IV, Special Need Education Senior Teacher (for primary schools), Senior Lecturer IV, Deputy Head Educator II, and Special Need Education Teacher I (for secondary schools).
- Grade C5 (T-Scale 10) – Senior Master III, Deputy Principal IV, Senior Lecturer III, Deputy Head Teacher, Head Educator, and Curriculum Support Officer II.
- Grade D1 (T-Scale 11) – Deputy Principal III, Senior Master II, Senior Lecturer II, Curriculum Support Officer I, and Senior Head Educator.
- Grade D2 (T-Scale 12) – Senior Master I and Deputy Principal II.
- Grade D3 (T-Scale 13) – Deputy Principal I and Principals.
- Grade D4 (T-Scale 14) – Senior Principals
- Grade D5 (T-Scale 15 – Chief Principals
TSC New Salary Scale for Teachers
As per the new TSC salaries circular released, the Teachers Service and Commission (TSC) will enumerate the pay rise of different tutors according to their job groups for both primary and secondary teachers.
The news salary scale will be for job groups H, J, K, L, M, and N.
The implementation of the three-phase cycle has been going on since the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2016.
The CBA is at its third phase at the moment according to the TSC CBA implementation schedule.
Instead of elongating the TSC salary scale for trainers in Teacher-Scale 12, Teacher-Scale 13, and T-Scale 9. Allowances like commuter, hardship, and annual leave also underwent revision. All other subsidies will not be changed.
Henry Rotich, the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary, stated that in the third phase, a total of three Billion has been allocated.
The Three Billion will cater for new recruitment, recurrent expenditure as well as the implementation of the third phase of the CBA.
The TSC salary scale per job is as shown below as per KNUT’s latest news on teacher’s pay as per the CBA’s third phase.
- Chief Principal – Ksh. 165,089 (minimum), and Ksh. 200,928 (maximum)
- Senior Principal – Ksh. 143,748 (minimum) Ksh. 174,270 (maximum)
- Principal GAT I – Ksh. 129,527 (minimum) Ksh. 155,894 (maximum)
- Principal GAT II – Ksh. 80,190 (minimum) Ksh. 97,290 (maximum)
- Senior GAT – Ksh. 69,590 (minimum) Ksh. 83,840 (maximum)
- GAT I – Ksh. 61,910 (minimum) Ksh. 71,880 (maximum)
- GAT II – Ksh. 46,020 (minimum) Ksh. 56,590 (maximum)
- GAT III – Ksh. 34,662 (minimum) Ksh. 39,918 (maximum)
- ATS IV – Ksh. 28,323 (minimum) Ksh. 33,662 (maximum)
- P1 – Ksh. 25,692 (minimum) Ksh. 30,304 (maximum)
Some of the tutors will not be getting an increment since their increment was concluded during the first two phases of CBA implementation. Secondary school tutors under the current job group C2 previously known as job group K with a Bachelor’s Degree in Education or any other of its equivalent will not get any pay rise during the ongoing third phase.
This means that the TSC job group K salary scale remains at a minimum of Ksh. 34,955 and a maximum of Ksh. 43,694.
Some secondary school teacher’s salaries in Kenya will not be affected as they belong to the non-increment group for the third phase.
The other categories of trainers whose salary increment was only scheduled for the first and second phase are:
- Secondary school tutors with a Diploma in Education (grade C1)
- Primary tutors at job group B5.
TSC Kenya Graduate trainee salary
The Teachers Service Commission is lining up to fill more than 10,000 posts that interns shall fill. The successful applicants will be absorbed into teaching for one year. This is because the internship takes twelve months.
The teacher’s trainees were entitled to a monthly amount of Ksh. 10,000 for Primary school trainees and Ksh. 15,000 for secondary school trainees. The amount was still subject to statutory deductions where applicable.
However, interns were added an amount of Ksh. 5,000. This applied to both primary and secondary school teacher trainees. This means that primary school interns are now going to receive Ksh. 15,000 while their secondary school counterparts shall receive Ksh. 20,000.
Teachers now have a reason to be happy as they have finally gotten a pay rise after a long struggle with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC). In the Kenyan economy, teachers will become the biggest gainers.