The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) field officers are relieved after their employer released allowances as refunds to the officers who conducted the recent interviews for the promotion of teachers recently.
The unpaid allowances were disbursed to the TSC Sub-County Directors (SCDs) through their County Directors (CDs) last week. It covered meals and transport for 10 days for interviews for primary school teachers at the that were conducted at the sub-county level and secondary school educators done at the county level.
Education News has confirmed that the exercise was done between January 13-23 for the primary teachers and January 26 to February 6 for secondary school counterparts.
The Commission declared over 19,000 promotion vacancies for teachers in December 2024 which were conducted at various venues across the country involving SCDs, Human Resource officers (HROs), Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (QASO), and Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs).
According to field officers who spoke in confidence to Education News, each panelist who participated in the interview pocketed Kshs 60,000 which covered meals and transport for overseeing the assignment at the sub-county and county levels.
READ ALSO: This is what entails effective study skills
“Each officer involved in the interviews was paid KSh1500 per day for the days they were involved in the interviews. The allowances reimbursed covered transport and meals for each panelist. The numbers of panelists varied depending on the size of the county. Ordinarily, there would be one to two panels to the job,” said one of the directors.
Click here to subscribe to Education News WhatsApp Channel
He revealed that interviews for senior and chief principals of secondary schools were conducted at the regional level by Regional Directors and a set of senior officers from the TSC headquarters. Unlike the SCDs, the panelists in this group drew their refunds by way of per diems.
Simmering tension
The release of the allowances has helped cool simmering tension between the TSC secretariat at the headquarters and the field officers over the unpaid allowances for several exercises assigned to them by their employer outside their work stations.
The frustrated officers had been questioning how TSC expected them to dutifully deliver on their work without facilitation. The matter became so hot that the officers piled pressure on the TSC to honour its part of the bargain in motivating them.
Last year, the TSC convened a face-to-face meeting with the Commision’s CEO, Dr Nancy Macharia in Naivasha that seemed to have cut the ice. But even then, the staff were unhappy that their boss didn’t show up for the much-anticipated engagement.
Following this, the employees escalated their pressure to have their grievances addressed. Only two weeks ago, as reported recently by Education News disgruntled TSC Sub-County Directors through their leaders wrote to Dr Macharia requesting her to look into their concerns as the continued failure by Commission to listen to their cries had affected their morale at the workplace.
Some of the major issues raised in the letter included the delayed allowances, the lack of a clear structure for the promotion of the officers and the huge workload among others.
By Kaptich Tarus
You can also follow our social media pages on Twitter: Education News KE and Facebook: Education News Newspaper for timely updates.
>>> Click here to stay up-to-date with trending regional stories
>>> Click here to read more informed opinions on the country’s education landscape
>>> Click here to stay ahead with the latest national news
