The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has maintained that the recent push by the P1 ‘A’ level teachers to overpay their accrued salary arrears between 1996 and 2010 is untenable, even as the tutors threaten to seek legal redress.
Responding to the teachers’ demand for payment of their arrears amounting to Ksh3.45 billion, TSC reiterated that no salary arrears have accrued and that the teachers were promoted after negotiations between the Commission, Ministry of Education (MoE), Treasury, and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), and their salaries were adjusted accordingly.
“Pursuant to negotiations between the Commission, Ministry of Education, Treasury and KNUT, P1 ‘A’ Level teachers were promoted in 2003 with a cost implication of Ksh332,194,522 between 2005 and 2007 under the Scheme of Service for non-graduate teachers, in 2010 with a cost implication of Ksh1.4 billion and finally in 2014,” said TSC.
Evidence
According to TSC, teachers’ salaries were adjusted accordingly commensurate to their new grades in all these promotions. No petitioner has presented evidence to show that even though they were promoted, their remuneration was not adjusted accordingly to warrant the prayer for salary arrears.
The Commission has also maintained that the issue of promotions of P1 ‘A’ Level teachers was tabled and discussed by the Departmental Committee on Education, Research and Technology on April 19, 2010, and that the matter having been conclusively discussed and dispensed with by the Committee cannot be re-opened 13 years later, reiterating that promotion is a contractual term of service.
“It is trite that promotion is a term of service that, like all the other terms of employment, is negotiated and agreed upon by the employer and the employee,” said TSC.
As explained by the Commission, it all started in 1995 when public secondary schools reported an acute shortage of teachers. At that time, the Commission had Untrained Graduate Teachers (UTS) in its workforce who also had A-Level qualifications.
To address the shortage, in July 1995, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST) developed a two-week condensed course. It subjected the A-Level teachers to the training. As a result, they were promoted to S1 grade after the training at Kangundo and Bondo Teachers Training Colleges.
As revealed by TSC, the teachers covered under this exercise were Secondary School teachers who had taught for at least six years and had one principal and two subsidiaries, excluding general paper.
“The decision to promote Untrained Teachers with ‘A’ Level qualifications was driven by the need to address an acute teacher shortage in secondary schools and hence did not cover Primary School teachers,” explained TSC.
What followed thereafter was that in July 1996, the government implemented a Scheme of Service for non-graduate teachers. Non-graduate teachers of P3, P2, P1, and ATS IV grades were to be promoted to higher grades after successfully completing the Teachers Promotion Course (TPC) coordinated by the Ministry of Education. This also led to the abolition of the S1 grade and the introduction of the ATS IV grade.
Serving S1 teachers, on the other hand, were allowed to progress to ATS III, II, and I gradually upon three years of satisfactory performance on one grade.
Consequently, pursuant to the promotion of untrained ‘A’ level teachers to S1 grade, KNUT began to agitate for the promotion of P1 teachers with ‘A’ level qualification, which later led to several consultative meetings between 2000 and 2003 between TSC, MoE, and KNUT.
Progressive Payment
However, in a letter dated December 22, 2023, the National Treasury gave its position concerning the payment of salary arrears for the said P1 teachers with ‘A’ Level academic qualifications. The National Treasury and Economic Planning Cabinet Secretary, then Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u, directed TSC to develop a progressive way of addressing the matter in case of any arrears.
This was after the Senate Standing Committee on Education prepared a report following a petition concerning the salary arrears. The Committee recommended that the National Treasury factor in the teachers’ salary arrears from 1996 to 2010 so that they paid during the 2023/2024 Financial Year.
In the letter, Prof. Ndung’u observed that although the Senate recommended paying the arrears in the petition, the report contradicted this, indicating that there were no arrears. Hence, the letter called on the TSC to clarify the matter.
He also note that the report indicates there were negotiations and agreements between KNUT, TSC, and the National Treasury between 2003 and 2014, which sought to address the disparity in terms of grade between Untrained ‘A’ Level teachers promoted in 1996 and P1 ‘A’ Level teachers promoted in 2003 which resulted in review and adjustment of salaries and as such, there are no accrued arrears. This contradicts the recommendation, which indicates that there are arrears,” said Prof Ndung’u in the letter to the TSC boss, Dr. Nancy Macharia.
“In this regard, we request that TSC clarify this matter and provide a breakdown of the arrears, if any, for the years in dispute to quantify the financial requirements. Therefore, should there be arrears, TSC should develop a progressive way of addressing them within the normal budgetary process,” added the CS.
Court battle
This push and pull has caused the teachers, under their umbrella body of the Retired and About to Retire Members Welfare Association (REAR), to sue TSC for discrimination when they promoted their S1 counterparts. This left them in violation of Section 5 of the Employment Act since the work done by P1 ‘A’ level teachers and their S1 counterparts demanded that they be paid equally, as the work done by both was of equal value.
They also accuse TSC of discriminating against them despite their better qualifications and experience than their S1 counterparts. Despite this discrimination, the Commission has refused to pay them their salary arrears.
They now want the court to compel TSC to pay them their arrears from 1996 to 2010 and compensation for the years they have suffered while agitating for their well-deserved pay.
By Roy Hezron
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