Primary school headteachers and secondary school principals and their deputies are first in line in the Teachers Service Commission’s plan for re-routing teachers set to happen early next year.
School administrators were the most affected by the delocalization policy and the Commission is now seemingly set to start with the first in the re-routing plan set to be executed in January next year.
6,078 school heads and their deputies were delocalized in 2018 when the delocalization policy was first implemented.
These teachers are now being rerouted in January back to their home counties.
The main teachers’ unions, Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), had both asked all delocalized teachers who want to be transferred back to their home counties to apply online and submit their details with them.
Akelo Misori the KUPPET Secretary-General has informed members that they have two months to make their applications for delocalization.
According to Misori, as part of the agreement with TSC, all teachers who had been delocalized to regions that they had not applied for in their transfer requests will be re-routed to their preferred regions of service.
“We advise teachers who were delocalized to apply for transfers to their preferred areas through the TSC Portal and this will be acted upon before the commencement of the next school term in January 2023 to avoid any other issue arising from teachers about delocalization,” said Akelo Misori.
According to reports, most of the heads of institutions are old and are almost retiring with many of them over fifty years and above.
TSC agreed with the main teachers’ unions that all delocalized teachers seeking transfers back home would be rerouted back as of January 2023.
Already KNUT has issued a circular to its members asking for the delocalized teachers to submit the required details to their area BEC’s or other KNUT officials near them for assistance.
“Several of our members have already submitted their applications for consideration for rerouting. We still have dates of others who have availed the required information and are yet to be re-routed due to logistical issues at a personal level,” said Collins Oyuu.
Oyuu said that KNUT expects to have more influence in future policies that affect their members.
“KNUT must have its rightful place at the table of planning, formation and implementation of policies that affect our members. If we had sat with TSC about delocalization, it would not have gone to this extent,” said Oyuu.
With Kenya Kwanza in administration, the current policy now requires teachers who have worked for more than three years in the North Eastern Region and at least five years in other regions will be considered for a transfer.
Teachers will also be required to have a partner to swap with. This will make the transfer a little difficult because most of the time teachers do not manage to get the perfect partner to replace with.
Now a new policy will be issued by the Commission that will guide how teacher deployment and recruitment following a motion by the National Assembly.