The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has released a list of counties that wont be mapped as hardship areas. This means teachers in these areas will not enjoy hardship allowance.
The teachers’ employer, pays hardship allowance to teachers working in selected areas that are perceived to be hostile owing to lack of social amenities, infrastructure and a challenging environment.
In a document seen by Jambo News team, all sub counties in Nyandarua county will now not fall under hardship areas. Also scrapped off from hardship zone are Kigumo, Murang’a, Nyahururu and Kandara sub counties.
Effective 1/12/2020, teachers working in aforementioned sub counties will cease to receive hardship allowance.
The decision was reached at after TSC conducted an exercise that aimed at harmonising both secretariat and teachers hardships areas so as to achieve parity of its employees.
“The commission conducted an exercise on harmonisation exercise of secretariat staff hardship areas with teachers approved for parity of treatment of TSC employees inline with TSC Gazete Notice of 1997 and the code of regulation for teachers'” read part of the document dated 23rd November.
Currently, the following counties are captured by the commission as hardship areas for teachers in Kenya;
| NO. | COUNTY |
| 1. | Turkana |
| 2. | Mandera County |
| 3. | Wajir County |
| 4. | Marsabit County |
| 5. | Samburu County |
| 6. | West Pokot County |
| 7. | Tana River County |
| 8. | Narok County |
| 9. | Kwale County |
| 10. | Garissa County |
| 11. | Kilifi County |
| 12. | Taita Taveta County |
| 13. | Isiolo County |
| 14. | Lamu County |
The table below shows summary of the monthly hardship allowance rates that are paid to teachers working in hardship areas; per job group as per the 2014 review:
S/NO | GRADE | TSC SCALE | FORMER JOB GROUP | Hardship Allowance- in Kshs per Month |
1 | B5 | 5 | G | 6,600 |
2 | C1 | 6 | H | 8,200 |
3 | C2 | 7 | I | 10,900 |
4 | C3 | 8 | J | 12,300 |
5 | C4 | 9 | K | 14,650 |
6 | C5 | 10 | L | 17,100 |
7 | D1 | 11 | M | 27,300 |
8 | D2 | 12 | N | 27,300 |
9 | D3 | 13 | P | 31,500 |
10 | D4 | 14 | Q | 31,500 |
11 | D5 | 15 | Â R | 38,100 |