Teachers cite discrimination in current 19,000 promotional interviews

Nancy Macharia TSC CEO during a past event. File photo

Teachers Service Commission (TSC) kicked off promotion interviews for teachers on Monday January 23, across the country. The Commission is in the process of promoting over 19,000 teachers to various job groups. This is seen as a reprieve for aged and long- serving teachers who missed out in the much derided promotions of 2024.

Teachers across the country prepared fully for the interviews with some burning the midnight oil as they tried to acquaint themselves with the functions of various government agencies and the latest policies in the education sector. To their utter shock, the much-hyped interviews turned out to be more of documents verification exercise than the real face to face interviews they had anticipated.

A survey done by Education News across the country revealed that the score sheets favoured aged teachers and those tutors who had overstayed in the same job group since 2017. It was in 2017 when the famous Schemes of Service (SoS) was phased out and replaced by the much loathed Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) where interviews became the norm as opposed by automatic promotions enshrined in the SoS.

A sample of teachers interviewed by Education News were quick to point out that their colleagues who were younger and had invested heavily in acquiring higher qualifications got a raw deal under the current arrangement. They said Master’s degree holders were awarded only a paltry five marks in the score sheet, those with bachelor’s degree a mere two marks and a diploma a measly one mark.

The teachers observed that most young and energetic counterparts were the ones with higher qualifications.

“It appears TSC only values experience only in rewarding teachers for promotions and has little respect for further training while in service. If the employer continues this skewed system of promotion, then teachers will disregard more in-services courses at Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI), Kenya Institute of Special Education. (KISE), and from relevant colleges and universities,” said a furious teacher who attended an interview at Ol-Kalao in Nyandarua.

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It would be interesting to see how those without higher qualifications will ascend to administrative positions in  the institutions where Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) are domiciled.

Most of the JSS teachers have bachelor’s qualifications while those institutions are manned by primary school administrators, most of whom don’t have university degrees. With those educators now set for promotion across these basic education institutions, TSC has set the stage for more bickering between the degree holder teachers verses the administrators.

Social media platforms focusing on education such as the highly-rated ‘Wadau Wa Elimu’ have been awash with turf wars between the two camps arguing about who should really be leading JSS – Is it primary school teachers or their secondary counterparts?

Opinion is very much divided in those groups on the wisdom of the Ministry of Education (MoE) decision to place JSS under primary school sector rather than high schools. This is despite the firm Government policy to overrule such thoughts and consequently investing heavily in infrastructure and new teachers for the new wings.

The new TSC promotional interviews currently ongoing across the country, will also see regular classroom teachers who had served in the same grade for 7 years promoted.

This lot will scoop clean 30 marks as opposed to their peers who joined the profession recently.

Teachers aged over 55 years on the other hand, will earn an automatic 20 marks. At the same time, those who had acting letters as either deputy head teachers or acting head teachers will secure 39 marks.

By Kaptich Tarus

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