More than 13, 713 teachers who had been stuck in the same job group have reason to rejoice after it was revealed Thursday that the National Treasury had granted Sh1 billion to their employer for their promotions.
However, this is only half of the Sh2.2 billion needed by the Teacher Service Commission (TSC) to promote primary, secondary, and college teachers to the next grade.
Yesterday, Chairman of the Education Parliamentary Committee Julius Melly stated that the decision to grant that money for promotion was made to enable teachers to provide better instruction.
Mr Melly, speaking to the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) in Mombasa, encouraged TSC to prioritize all teachers who have been stuck in one grade for years.
“We gave the ministry Sh1 billion to promote teachers. There is a band of teachers from grade D3 to D4 who should be given special consideration in the next promotion as they have not been promoted for years,” he said.
He mentioned this after KESSHA chairman Kahi Indimuli highlighted concerns about delays in teacher promotions at all levels, citing deputy principals who have been denied promotions despite acting for a year.
Mr Indimuli stated that in most cases, deputies had served for more than six months before being demoted after new principals were assigned to those schools.
“It is demoralising and diminishing for a deputy principal to act for sometime, and after a short while, they are demoted to either a class teacher or subject head,” said Indimuli.
According to an early TSC circular, about 4,595 primary school teachers in Job Group C will be promoted to Job Group C2.
C2 employees were transferred to C3, and C3 teachers were transferred to C4. The cost of this activity was anticipated to be Sh1 billion. The exercise is scheduled to begin in July.
According to an earlier TSC notification, 652 college professors in Grade D3 will be promoted to Grade D4 at a cost of more than Sh175 million.
Around 13,713 secondary and primary school head teachers, deputy principals, senior masters, secondary teachers, head teachers, and deputy head teachers would be promoted under this strategy.
Promotions will be made for 2,733 regular primary school head teachers, 1,330 secondary school teachers, 1,725 deputy principal IIs, 602 regular school leaders, 224 deputy principal IIIs at secondary schools, and 208 senior master IIs under this new strategy.
Overall, Parliament has allotted at least Sh2.2 billion to TSC for teacher promotion and higher salary.
Officials from the Ministry of Education informed Mombasa principals Wednesday that the government was eager to address the severe teacher shortage. Ezekiel Machogu, Cabinet Secretary for Education, announced on Wednesday that an additional 24,000 teachers would be hired in the coming fiscal year.
This brings President William Ruto’s regime’s total number of teachers to 60,000.